‘The Responder’ star Martin Freeman gets scruffy in new role

nypost.com:

BritBox.“As soon as I read the script I knew how I wanted him to look,” Freeman, 50, told The Post about his onscreen alter-ego. “I could see someone with a skinhead and a beard, weirdly enough.

I don’t always have a strong image of someone when I read a script but … I could see him the way he looks in the series.“I don’t know why, but it just looked right.”The six-episode police procedural, which premiered on BBC One in the UK and will return for a second season, was created and written by ex-Liverpool police officer-turned-novelist Tony Schumacher.

It revolves around Chris Carson (Freeman), who’s struggling with a bevy of personal demons, including panic attacks, that are impacting his already-fragile marriage to Kate (MyAnna Buring) and his relationship with their young daughter, Tilly.

A former police inspector, he’s been demoted to nightshift beat work amidst allegations of being “bent” (a dirty cop) and he now patrols the streets of Liverpool as “The Responder,” dispatched to handle situations running the gamut from pedestrian to dangerous. (The series was shot on-location.) He’s also in cahoots with an old friend, Carl Sweeney (Ian Hart), who’s dealing drugs for a local syndicate — and who leads Chris down a dark path involving a teenaged junkie, Casey (Emily Fairn), and the cocaine she stole from his bosses.“When we meet [Chris] he’s already in a fairly downward spiral … he’s trying to keep on top of his work and in the first episode he gets information about a young woman [Casey] who he vaguely knows from an old friend of his [Carl] and he’s pulled in all different directions from the word go,” Freeman said.