Interview with producer Jackie Larkin
Interview with producer Jackie Larkin
Published: 31 August 2017
It’s a fascinating story because you’re getting all sides of their world. The contrast is wonderful between all of those characters - the big, modern publisher, the editor, the proper literary agent from the old school
Can you introduce the plot for us? Where are Strike and Robin when we first come to Silkworm?
By the time we get to The Silkworm, Strike has become a bit of a celebrity. He’s in the front of all the papers and people think he’s really cool and that he’s the best private investigator in town and now he’s got some money.
He’s been able to at least afford now to rent the little flat above his office, so he doesn’t have to sleep in his own office anymore, so that’s a big thing. Robin has helped really polish up the office a bit with whatever meagre funds they had, but it looks a bit more presentable. But she’s also grown and learned quite a lot and is passionate about this business. She's realising that this is what she’s wanted to do her whole life. Now she’s finally here.
When we meet them at the start of The Silkworm, they have lots of cases. There’s a lot of potential divorce cases, so he’s following various couples around town with his camera, but he’s been busy and they’re in a good place. Robin wants to do more, she’s been doing too much of the admin in the office and I think she’s getting a bit fed up with that. She helped in solving the Lula Landry case and had a few very important moments where she got some key pieces of information that only she could have gotten. So Strike knows she’s good, but it’s the juggling act.
What do you think The Silkworm reveals about the people of the publishing world?
That’s what people first said when they read the book - "Oh, what is this telling us about the real world of publishing?"
It’s a fascinating story because you’re getting all sides of their world. The contrast is wonderful between all of those characters. You’ve got the very big, modern publisher, which is one side. You’ve got the editor, you’ve got the agent and the literary agent in this case is from the old school, the proper literary agent. Loves her books but lives in the faded apartment. And the faded office, where literally the books are falling off the shelves on top of her, practically.
Of course, we’ve got a very vain writer in Andrew Fancourt, who is doing very well and is in every bookshop you pass, the jacket of the book is there filling the bookshop windows. Then you’ve got Quine who is the bitter, failed writer. I think there’s possibly quite a lot of truth in all of those characters.
Can you talk us through the murder on Talgarth Road, which was a particularly gruesome one?
Yes, firstly Talgarth Road is an incredible road. We were all just going "Oh my god!" and the designer was so excited because we actually got into what was an artist’s studio, so it was perfect. Effectively the character of Quine has been disembowelled, all of his intestines have been removed and he’s been sprayed with acid. Then a table is set around him while on the floor you’ve got cutlery and plates, so it’s like a meal is ready, "Here, let’s eat Quine."
There was quite a lot of fun in the talking and planning of this scenario, with the prosthetics and what we could do with the actor, trying to make sure it looked right. Very gruesome.
Also, this story takes you in a very peculiar direction as far as the production goes, to have a book within a book. Bombyx Mori helping to guide us through the different suspects. How did you approach that?
That was a tricky balance, there’s no doubt. And the debates about how much of it should end up in the final scripts and how it was used - should it be used as a manuscript that’s helping Strike solve the mystery? The material of Bombyx Mori itself is very odd, it’s very dark, almost Jacobean, it’s Gothic. It’s got elements of all. Quite out there.
Solving it relied on a combination of all of the Heads of Department getting together and trying to pool ideas. They come up with this idea of these amazing hand-made masks, which each character wore, very twisted, mad looking masks. We then had to get the broadcasters onside and say, "This is our plan. Do you like this? Can you buy into this? Because this is completely different to the main narrative and what else you’re going to see."
Kieron our director was fantastic, he had such wonderful ideas about how to shoot it and how to mess around with the grading and with the lenses to create distortion. We shot it in Penshurst Castle in Kent, which provided all the Baroque architecture we needed.
The integration of it within the actual story itself and even within the edit - that was tricky. If you’re going to do something like that, you have to really go for it. You don’t want there to be a narrative 'bump', so when people are sitting down with a cup of tea, Sunday at 9 o’clock, and it all seems fine and we’re in Strike’s world and the next we’re into this quite grotesque world with these masks and licking and I won’t tell you what they got up to!
So, we had to be clever about where we placed them in the edit and what you saw. But it always had to feel like, "OK, I’m now in Strike’s head, I’m reading what he’s reading on the page. And even if I don’t understand some of it, that doesn’t matter. I just see that this world is grotesque and weird and I know that our clever Strike is getting something out of this. He’s going to piece some of the pieces together with this manuscript."
Let’s talk a bit about the other locations. We end up at one point on the roof of the publishing house, which also gives us insight into the publishing world?
Hachette publishing kindly gave us this rooftop to do the party and Hachette publishes Robert Galbraith, so it all made sense. It’s architecturally such a beautiful building on the inside and well worth seeing the interior, because you realise this is really a serious business here.
It’s a big business. They have this unbelievable rooftop terrace, which looks out over the Thames, up to the Oxo Building, to the left the London Eye. Everywhere you look it’s incredible. It’s incredible in the daytime, but when you’re there at night time, the whole world lights up. So, we thought, "Perfect place to stage this publishing party!"
It’s curious actually, even as Robin and Strike walk out to this terrace, it’s like a big wow, and he says to her "You know, we’re hearing all these sob stories about people not making money from books, but every time we encounter this world it’s either a very nice lunch or an amazing party."
It was quite incredible. It was just to celebrate Andrew Fancourt coming back to Chard Publishing. This is what they do, this is the kind of splash they do. It’s hidden from the rest of the world, but this is close to the publishing world, this is par for the course.
There are some scenes set in the Chelsea Arts Club as well, you didn’t shoot in there but you cheated it?
We couldn’t in the end and they were getting some paintwork done to the outside, it didn’t work, which was a shame.
We filmed in two locations, in Bloomsbury for some of the exterior and then we were in this amazing house towards Hammersmith, which just worked perfectly and felt like the interior of the dining room of the Chelsea Arts, it’s beautiful and it’s very intimate and just did the trick.
Again, an amazing location. We set up this very special dinner that had to be done there and this was the denouement and where Strike comes and says, "You did it and I’m going to tell you why." It’s the moment of revelation, it’s wonderful.
