Feature
U-TURN
I was a Clydebank road digger, now I’m starring with Gary Oldman in Apple TV+ blockbuster Slow Horses
'I felt like I was in MI5 for real'
FORMER road digger Chris Reilly took a major punt when he tried acting in his thirties - but is now a front-runner for a BAFTA TV Award for the streaming sensation Slow Horses.
The Clydebank-born actor had done a string of tough manual jobs from working on the roads and railways to running a homeless unit until enrolling in drama college at 31 years old.
4
4
4
4
But on Sunday night (May 12) the Scot will join the all-star cast of the Apple TV+ hit Slow Horses - including Gary Oldman, Kirstin Scott Thomas and Jack Lowden - when the spy series is up for Best Drama at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
Chris says: “I did all sorts of site work - digging holes in roads, digging holes in railways.
“I also worked as a joiner, worked in a warehouse and childrens’ homes - but this is the best job I’ve had by a long stretch.
“There are some days when you go to your work and you can’t believe how much fun it is.
READ MORE SHOWBIZ
“I spent a day flying over the English countryside hanging out the side of a helicopter for Slow Horse. I felt like I was in MI5 for real.
“Other days I’ve driven through the South African desert in an old series two Land Rover. You also get to live in places like Rome or Budapest for months at a time while you’re filming there.”
Chris was raised with his young brother Michael in a “halfway house” in Clydebank which was run by their single parent dad Frank.
But it was while working in a council-run children’s home he decided to try his hand at acting for the very first time.
Most read in Showbiz
The 46-year-old explains: “Me and my brother once shared a bedroom with a homeless person for years while growing up in a halfway house.
“I was used to meeting people who were at rock bottom. So when I was working with kids who were ready to leave the care system, I loved it. It was really rewarding.
Man Utd fan Gary Oldman reveals that he texts Sir Alex Ferguson
“But because of staff shortages I ended up in charge of three units doing 80 hours a week.
“I was so stressed I needed something to take my mind off things, so out of the blue I decided to get in touch with the amateur dramatics group The Apollo Players.
“Amazingly I just found acting was something I could do. It also helped that I could memorise my lines very quickly.”
Chris was able to land a BAFTA scholarship to attend the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff in 2009 - but the working class lad from Scotland immediately felt out of place.
He says: “Suddenly I was pitched in amongst a bunch of middle-class drama school students straight out of high school.
“But I was 31 and was from a different world so understandably I had a hard time fitting in.
“They all wanted a laugh and to party, but I was there to get my head down and learn. I saw this as the last chance to make a different life for myself.”
Chris was snapped up by a top agent before he even graduated and landed roles in Doctors, EastEnders, Silent Witness, Shetland and then the TV juggernaut Game of Thrones in 2012.
He says: “I was living in London at the time but I would still have to take bar work in-between jobs to pay the rent.”
However that all changed when he was cast in the leading role as Sergeant Alan Maxter in the 2017 BBC One series The Last Post alongside Irish star Jessie Buckley.
Set in the backdrop of the 1965 Aden conflict in the Middle East, it led to winning a Scottish BAFTA for Best Actor the following year.
He says: “The Last Post was the big break I needed as in my mind it was my last hurray. I honestly thought ‘I’m giving up after this.’ But it was a real turning point for me.”
Chris hasn’t looked back since, with returning roles in BBC’s Call The Midwife, Amazon Prime’s The Feed, Hulu’s thriller The Head and Sky’s Devils with Patrick Dempsey in 2020.
But his biggest role to date has been as Nick Duffy, head of MI5’s internal affairs and tactical unit nicknamed “the Dogs” in Slow Horses.
The drama follows a team of British intelligence agents who are “dumped” by MI5 in Slough House due to career-ending mistakes, under the watchful eye of boss Jackson Lamb (Oldman).
Chris, who lives in Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute, with his fiancee Kayleigh, says: “Slow Horses is basically about terrible spies who are sent to Slough House to retire and expire.
“But under Jackson Lamb’s some of these spies actually thrive going back to the old school techniques.
“I’m the lethal enforcer within MI5 who is deployed if you’re not doing what you’re told. I’m there to either persuade them - or eliminate them.”
But the series also gave him a chance to work with his acting hero Gary Oldman.
Chris had been a huge fan since Oldman’s role as Mason Verger - the only surviving victim of Anthony Hopkins’ serial killer character Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter - in the 2001 film Hannibal.
He says: “Gary actually did Verger’s voice for me in the back of a taxi. It was chilling. Then Mike Myers did a video call with him - that was definitely a red-letter day.
“I’ve been in all three seasons now and it has never been out of Apple TV’s top 10 since it was launched.
“The money I earned also enabled me to look after my mum Mary when she was dying from a lung condition.
“I was able to build her a house at the bottom of my garden and she passed away in 2022 while I was filming the second series. She was only 69. But I’ll always be grateful to Slow Horses for that.”
Chris’s career shows no sign of slowing down after recently playing a sheriff in the action flick Jericho Ridge, and he will soon be seen in the Channel 4 black comedy Generation Z - about old folks’ home residents who turn into flesh-eating zombies.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
While he’s just returned from Hungary where he filmed the CBS show FBI International, playing the Head of MI5’s counter terrorism unit, hunting down IRA terrorists in London.
But on Sunday he will just be playing himself for once when he’s suited and booted for the star studded BAFTA TV Award. He jokes: “It certainly beats digging holes for a living.”