Jason Watkins is one of the most in-demand supporting actors at work today, and so he is relishing his returning role in The Game for one very pertinent reason: he is the lead. Or so it would seem.
“Well, let’s be correct about this,” he says. “I’m co-starring. It’s me and Robson Green.”
He’s right, of course. The Game – a cagey, psychological and only slightly soapy channel 5 drama – revolves very much around Watkins and Green. The former plays Huw Miller, a recently retired detective desperate for a quiet life that, by the end of the first episode of series two, will be forever denied him, while Green’s Patrick Harbottle is an imprisoned serial killer who still manages to exert psychological control over people from within the confines of his prison cell (think Hannibal Lecter without the fava beans).
Watkins, speaking on video call, tells me he did not take the opportunity to throw himself into such a meaty role lightly. “When you’re playing a supporting character – which I have done a lot of; number five on the call sheet, that kind of thing – then you are not necessarily taking on the burden of the whole production. This means you can have fun with it, enjoy yourself. But when you’re in the middle of it, as I am here, with Robson, then you have time to flesh out your character, and to make the most of the opportunities you’ve been given.”
