Colm Meaney is back in the gangster world this April. Layer Cake meets The Raid? Bring it on.
Throughout his esteemed career, Colm Meaney has played a plethora of memorable characters but it’s arguable that one of his most underrated roles is his turn as the criminal kingpin Gene in Layer Cake.
Yes, Matthew Vaughn’s blistering directorial debut is still best remembered as Daniel Craig’s breakout role, but the authority, menace, and mischief that Meaney imbued his London gangster with was a lot of fun.
Well, the Irish actor is returning to the world of organised crime in his new drama, Gangs of London, and we’ve had our eye on this TV show for quite some time.
Why? Well, the show is created by Gareth Evans, the director of The Raid films.
During a previous interview with JOE, Meaney gave us a brief taste of what’s in store, and a few days ago we also caught up with some of Meaney’s Gangs of London co-stars – Joe Cole and Sope Dirisu – to get their take on the gangster drama.
“I just do a cameo in it. I’m like the godfather of a crime family and I’m basically shot in the very first shot of the show. I’m assassinated, which kicks off a whole thing. My story is all told in flashbacks to when I was alive, but when the show starts, I’m dead. It’s a tremendous piece of writing – I haven’t seen a whole episode, I’ve been doing a lot of ADR work – and it looks fantastic. It’s incredibly violent,” said Meaney.
With Meaney’s death kicking off the whole series of events, it’s up to his impulsive son Sean Wallace (Joe Cole), with the help of the Dumani family, headed by Ed Dumani (Lucian Msamati), to take his father’s place.
To many people, Joe Cole is still best known for his role as John Shelby in Peaky Blinders and he’s extremely excited to be playing a very different type of gangster in the new drama.
“It’s exciting, we’ve all worked very hard on this show and we all feel like it’s something that’s very different. We feel like it paints London in a different way and that’s unique. My character is Sean Wallace – he’s the son of the biggest gangster in the UK, that’s played by Colm Meaney, and he has Irish heritage. He (Meaney) gets assassinated in the first episode and I take over the criminal empire. I’m his posh, private school eductaed son that’s trying to figure out this game but he has a lot of PTSD. What is the game? It’s racketeering, it’s drugs, it’s washing money through property and there’s this huge vacuum for power with a lot of different gangs competing,” said Cole.
Every crime boss needs colleagues that he can trust and it appears that Elliot Finch (played by Sope Dirisu) will be one of Sean Wallace’s most trusted men.
“I play Finch who is literally a nobody. He just appears and tries to ingratiate himself with the character of Sean because he wants to work himself up the ranks and become somebody. Basically, he’s a man that’s lost and is in search of an identity but he’s good with his hands, he takes eight guys out in an alleyway in one scene!” said Dirisu.
With episodes directed by Evans, Corin Hardy (The Nun) and Xavier Gens (Hitman), we’re expecting good things when Gangs of London launches on Sky and NOW TV later this year.
Take a look at what’s in store.
Clip via Sky TV
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
