Interview with Babou Ceesay

What does the phrase ‘dark money’ mean to you?
It's pointing at the countless settlements that we have in our society around money. Just to say, "well here - I’m going to pay you for this, and we’ll leave it at that". If you have money and can pay for your slights, then what does it mean? The beauty in what the writer Levi does is that he goes, okay, so 90-something percent of people take money instead of fighting, they go: "Fine, you’ve paid for it, we’ll leave it at that".

But what happens when they get home and put that money in the bank? And they look at it and think, I’ll buy one new suit but I know that money has come from my child being abused. That’s what it’s about. To put it bluntly, it’s about money earnt dishonestly.

Tell us about your character.
Manny is facing the biggest question he’s ever had to face. He’s made some mistakes in his life, made some choices; things have happened that through circumstance, through him being irresponsible so on and so forth he’s now in a situation where he’s in the life he is in. But at least he knows what it is and he’s doing everything he can to keep it going.

So when this happens, he suddenly has to face a reality that he’s never had to face before. He’s asking himself lots of questions: Maybe if I’d been educated better, things would be better? Maybe if I had more money things would be better, I’d be able to fight better?

We’re talking about femininity and masculinity in the world at large right now and turning the boat slowly, and I’m glad about that. But at the moment there is that question in Manny - am I a man?

This other man has done this to his son and he's just realised that someone who has a $3.7 billion net worth has so many more means than he does. All he has is this physical body, so what is he going to do? It’s overwhelming for him, he’s almost stunted and doesn’t know what to do next. Every decision he has he second guesses and pulls back.

I think ultimately he looks for permission from his son - it’s as if he’s watching him, going - "are you okay?" in his mind. And he asks him several times, "Are you alright? Are you sure you’re okay?" And if the son says "yes" then he goes, "I guess it’s okay" - but of course it’s not.

What attracted you to the role?
The premise was so powerful I just thought, what?! Then I found myself questioning what I would do - even before flipping the pages, I needed to make decisions, and as I realised what they do actually do, that’s what led me to do research. There is so much layered on in tiny moments...

Before we even started rehearsing, when I met Olive Grey who plays my daughter Jess, we did this improvisation and I suddenly went, "I need to think about this relationship". Because Levi writes in so many layers, so if you focus on the top - which is just what is being said - you can miss the entire story.

There’s so much, relationship-wise, going on in the family setting - things unsaid, things not done. And I thought, as awful as this sounds, the abuse is almost outside of that. It just becomes this massive light on what love actually exists in this family, just among themselves. As harsh as what’s happened, what in the end is the most important, what will keep them together? And that’s the thing that just made me think, when can I start?

Do you relate to your character?
I do. You can go through periods where you don’t realise that you can just say how you feel, very simply, and hope it works out. You think the best way to deal with things is to avoid conflict and keep everything as easy as possible, to seek permission from outside of yourself, not go in deep and really find out what you’re going through.

But the big advantage of being an actor is you have to keep digging things up psychologically, and the more you do it the more you start inadvertently opening up stuff in yourself. So, as a person, I have moved away from being like Manny (although I still catch myself sometimes, but I think that's life!).

This guy, Manny, has done one thing, which is he’s built a massive lie around his life and the lie is very simple: if I just sit still and just keep everything at bay, everything will be okay. And he carries that on until there’s literally nowhere left to hide. Then he realises the only way out is to be truthful, and worst of all to be truthful with himself.

What do you think of the timing of the series?
It is timely.  Once upon a time a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) meant that if you did something and someone’s signed an NDA then you’re in a safe box. They’re compensated, you’re safe after what you’ve done, and that’s the end of it. And actually there is an argument that some people did the whole NDA thing just to avoid public knowledge, whether they did something or not. So it’s all still in that he said/she said category.

But what Dark Money does, which I love, is that it doesn’t try to make a political statement. By focusing in on the family and the impact of the decision they make in accepting the money, it doesn’t say this is the right or wrong thing to do, or judge. And so even though it is timely and it will I hope affect people, what’s not going to happen is we’re not going to say ‘abuse’, ‘NDAs', ‘accepting money’.

Rather, we’re going to say, here’s a family, here’s a relatable child, and within that framework, what is the impact? It brings it right back to the victim, to the person who has been wronged: how do they cope with the decision that's been made?

Related Media Centre Links

• Babou Ceesay and Jill Halfpenny to lead the cast of Levi David Addai’s new drama Dark Mon£y for BBC One
• Four exciting new drama commissions announced for BBC One