FAULT have been loving “the Beeb’s” new spy thriller series, ‘Hunted‘ – also available in the USA on Cinemax. Melissa George plays Sam Hunter, a rogue agent from private espionage agency Byzantium who returns to work a year after being betrayed and nearly murdered on a mission in Tangiers. As Sam tries to uncover who put the hit on her in Morocco, she begins to uncover a trail that leads to a mole within her own organisation – and possibly to a source at the very top of the covert intelligence establishment.

Adam Rayner plays Aiden, Sam’s ‘handler’ (her agency point of contact while on missions) and also, it transpires, her lover during the time of her ill-fated excursions in Tangiers. Aiden’s character is outwardly stony to mask levels of both genuine warmth for Sam and, increasingly as the series continues, nebulous multiplicity. We were delighted to have the chance to speak to Adam about his role in the series on the set of an exclusive shoot for FAULT:

FAULT: Let’s talk about your new series HUNTED. Can you tell us who you play and what it’s all about?

Adam: I play Aidan and he is basically a private spy. He’s working for a private intelligence company that is getting mixed up in all sorts of international intrigue and conspiracy. We’re all working for a private intelligence company. This world of privitisation is extending to intelligence and security work. I think it’s quite interesting to have a show that for the first time, rather than being MI6 or CIA, is about that government sanctioned private world.

 

You mention it not being about the MI6, do you think that the end of SPOOKS has made way for this kind of show?

Very much so. In the sense that times are changing and this world where you don’t know quite who the good guys and the bad guys are because it’s private companies working for the highest bidder is increasingly how that world seems to operate. Not that I’m any great expert. It’s just the way the whole world is going, everyone’s being farmed out to private contractors and if you look at what’s happening in Afghanistan and Iraq and what would have previously been done by government sanctioned military is now being down by private companies. In terms of following on from SPOOKS it is very much taking it into the twenty-first Century. What was traditionally MI6, CIA, KGB, the whole James Bond vibe.

Get the full story in FAULT Issue 12 – and look out for our feature on Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje – who plays Deacon in the series – in FAULT Issue 13 this Winter.