The Pin on bringing Deep Cover to the screen interview
Deep Cover, a fast-paced funny film featuring lots of British comedy talent, is now on Amazon's Prime Video platform. Here we talk to The Pin, AKA Alexander Owen and Ben Ashenden. The scriptwriting duo also appear in the movie as police detectives.
Hi Alexander and Ben. How many years is it you've been working together now?
We met in 2009 and started doing student stuff. Our first show at the Edinburgh Fringe as a duo was 2013. Our first BBC Radio series was 2015... Ages, basically.
As we'll talk about next, you've just written a big movie for Amazon. When you started out, was getting a big film project made a goal, or did that seem like an unrealistic dream at that stage?
The Frost/Pegg/Wright axis of moviemaking was certainly a dream reference point from our British comedy POV, but yes the whole film world definitely seemed a long way off. The sort of reference point you squint at through a telescope.
So the movie is Deep Cover. Tell us a bit about the premise...
Kat, an unsuccessful and disillusioned comedian teaching improv comedy classes, is approached by a police officer to conduct low-level stings. The logic being that the crooks can spot undercover cops easily, plus they aren't so good at thinking on their feet. The undercover programme requires groups of three, so Kat pulls in two of her students to work with her: an overly intense wannabe method actor - Marlon - and a sweetly innocent IT assistant who only joined the class to improve his people skills - Hugh. All three are at a crossroads in their lives, dissatisfied, with something to prove, but none expect that their combustible combination of wildly disparate improv skills will take them far, far deeper into London gangland than was ever intended...
The project started in a quarantined situation?
We both had small roles in Jurassic World: Dominion (the director, Colin Trevorrow, has lived in the UK for a while and is a keen British comedy fan). We got to know each other a bit whilst in the strict lockdown hotel environment of the Jurassic movie, and started sharing ideas. Colin mentioned Deep Cover, which was a project he'd tried to get off the ground a decade or so earlier. We loved the sound of the premise (which bizarrely enough actually stems from a New York Times article about the NYPD genuinely using actors for this kind of low-end sting work), so he sent us that original script which he'd written with his partner Derek Connolly. We then wrote a pitch document outlining how we'd like to take it forwards, our vision for the movie basically, and Colin very generously handed the whole thing over, encouraging us to write our version in our style. He then became the producer of the project, and as time went on and our script came together we landed our brilliant director - Tom Kingsley - and eventually the support of Amazon MGM.
How much of that world of improv in the movie is from your own experiences/friends, and how much is guessed/exaggerated?
A bit of both. It was never our intention to write a film that naturalistically depicts the nuanced reality of the UK improv scene. A film like that already exists in the US - Don't Think Twice - and it's not what this story is about. Rather the world of improv is our springboard into a wild farcical crime adventure.
You must be thrilled with the cast that has been assembled?
Yes! Through the generosity of our producer Colin and director Tom we were very involved in casting discussions, and names like 'Sean Bean' or 'Paddy Considine' would get floated as unrealistic dream-scenario moonshots we may as well go for before getting into the actual casting process, and then they said yes!
The most important thing of all was the chemistry of the main trio, and we were so delighted with the balance of performing styles and expertise Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom and Nick Mohammed bring to the table. We couldn't have asked for three finer musketeers, with three more delicately tuned performance muskets. They just absolutely nailed it. #muskets.
Is there possibility for a sequel?
We'll get back to you!
It's a busy time for you... you're also working on a number of other projects. Bill's Included, with Rob Brydon, sounds brilliant...
We're thrilled to be making Bill's Included for the BBC. It's about a middle-aged guy whose wife leaves him, so he decides to rent out his spare rooms to students. He desperately wants to be part of the gang, but is also a fussy micro-manager, so is constantly caught between being their landlord and their land...friend? Writing for Rob is such a joy. The man is just a nuclear grade comedy weapon.
And can you tell us more about Arno?
It's a show we're developing with Channel 4 that would also have us in the main roles. We can't add much more at the moment as it's a work-in-progress, but it's a high concept comedy thriller that's not a million miles away from the genre-blending of Deep Cover. Hopefully we'll have more to say soon.
Deep Cover is on Prime Video
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