Interview

INTERVIEWS
Matthew Macfadyen is Charles Ingram
Q: Were you among those watching Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? when it first came to the screen in
1998?
I was certainly aware of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? when it first launched. The first TV show to offer a
prize of £1 million. It was real event television attracting enormous audiences. People would make an
appointment to sit and watch it.
When this production came along, I vaguely remembered the Charles Ingram case. But I had to be
reminded of it. People think they saw the actual episode featuring the ‘Coughing Major’ but it was not
transmitted at the time. They most likely remember the ITV documentary about it.
Why did you want to be involved in Quiz?
It was a different kind of part for me. Really good fun. Quiz barrels along with a slight tongue in cheek.
There’s a twinkle all the way through it. But then because of that it allows interesting questions to be
asked. It’s also quite moving at points.
When the role came along, I watched the episode in question and wondered if there was any way I could
play this guy. The prospect of working with the director Stephen Frears was also very exciting. I’ma big
admirer of his work.
James Graham’s script is very interesting and has several layers. Among other things it’s about perception.
People who thought Charles Ingram didn’t look like a man who knew the answers. Also deciding what is
real and what isn’t.
I also found it quite affecting as a love story. It’s about Charles and Diana Ingram and their relationship.
Sian Clifford, who plays Diana, and I found that very touching. They have stuck together all of the way
through this experience.
How did you approach playing Charles Ingram?
I played it straight and as truthfully as I could. On the page I found Charles and Diana Ingram quite
sympathetic. I think that’s all you can do as an actor. You just play it straight down the line and then allow
audiences to project whatever on to that.
In the shooting of it we allowed ourselves a bit of leeway. We would do takes that were a little more
innocent than others. Just so that in the cutting room putting it all together there would be options.
Because you never know how it’s going to hang together or which way you want to go.
I’m still in two minds as to the guilt of Charles and Diana Ingram or their innocence. I haven’t come to a
conclusion about whether they are guilty or not. I don’t know how you can. I played it as it was written.
Who knows? I didn’t know what to think by the end.
What is certain is Charles Ingram is a clever man with real achievements in life. He had a very good career
in the Army and is a member of Mensa.
It’s true to say their lives were totally ruined by what happened. Whether they were guilty or not, I don’t
think they deserved the consequences that followed. Their pets were attacked, people spat at Charles, they
had to move house and he lost his job in the Army. It was pretty hard going for them. It feels like they have
suffered disproportionately. It’s a game show. Nobody died.
Did you meet Charles and Diana Ingram?
I met them briefly when they came on set towards the end of filming. They were lovely. Sian Clifford and I
said a quick hello. We didn’t have time to sit down and chat with them.
It’s an odd thing because I’m not doing an impersonation of Charles Ingram. It’s a re-telling of the story. So,
it’s always only an impression of a person. It’s a funny thing playing a real person in this way. As an actor
you are aware this is somebody’s life. It’s a peculiar thing to do.
I haven’t played many real people before. You just hope they approve. Because you don’t know what really
happened and how people feel about it. You just have to do your job as an actor.
Quiz reveals the lengths some people went to in order to get on Millionaire. Did you have any idea about
that?
I had no idea about how obsessed people were with the show. I knew nothing about that. And it’s all true.
There’s a very funny line in the script which says, ‘People love a good pub quiz. A uniquely British invention.
Combining our two greatest loves: Drinking and being right.
There was this whole other side to it with things like a group of quiz experts, who we call The Syndicate in
the drama, who cracked how to get on to the show and more. While we see Diana’s brother Adrian
practicing on a Fastest Finger First machine in his garage to increase his speed of reaction for when he
actually got a place among the real studio contestants competing to get in the chair.
Charles and Diana Ingram were not part of that ‘Syndicate’. They were a very ordinary middle-class family
and certainly weren’t terribly wealthy. He was a Major in the Royal Engineers and she was a teaching
assistant in a school. After their conviction a newspaper offered them a sum not far off what Charles would
have won, if they admitted their guilt and did an expose of how they almost got away with it. And they
politely said no.
Charles Ingram didn’t like quizzes that much. In contrast, Diana and her brother just loved quizzes and they
became obsessed with this TV show. Both appeared on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? before Charles did.
You sing a Gilbert and Sullivan song in the drama. How was that to do?
That was such a lovely thing to film. I had to learn that from scratch as I’m not versed in Gilbert and Sullivan
at all. It was fun learning that. We also have a fantasy dancing sequence. Again, a really great thing to
shoot.
Where did you film?
We filmed at Wimbledon Studios where they built an exact replica of the Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?
set as it looked in the late 1990s. The whole thing exactly as it was. Walking on to that set for the first time
was fantastic. No acting was required because you are there under the lights feeling all of that fear real
contestants would have felt as they tried to get into the chair.
Sitting in the chair itself was great. Although it wasn’t very comfortable. It was so weird sitting opposite
Michael Sheen as Chris Tarrant in that studio.
The first scene we actually shot was where Chris Tarrant was in the witness box at the trial and we are in
the dock. Michael was so good in the role. I hadn’t seen him for a while, but we’ve known each other since I
was at drama school. We did Frost/Nixon together in 2008. So, it was very nice to be reunited with Michael
on this.
We filmed the exterior court scenes outside Southwark Crown Court where the real trial took place. With
the interiors shot in a former court building in Hammersmith that is no longer used.
Having been found guilty, the Ingrams expected to go to jail. But instead they were given suspended
sentences. You get all of the stigma and shame of it but no real custodial punishment. It’s odd.
Are you a fan of quizzes?
I’m not remotely obsessed with quizzes. If they asked me to appear on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? I
would probably pass. I feel like I’ve had the experience now.
Television has moved on so much in a relatively short time and is far more sophisticated today. I stumbled
across an old episode of Bullseye on TV the other day and that was very strange. It looked like East Berlin.
The host Jim Bowen was getting the cash notes out of his jacket pocket and putting £50 notes into a
tankard. They would give speedboats to people who lived in the middle of a landlocked city.
How do you reflect back on filming Quiz?
People may think they know this story but there is so much more to be discovered in this drama. I think the
audience will find it both very interesting and surprising.
It’s the sort of story where you can all sit down as a whole family, from grandparents to kids, and everyone
will have a different opinion as to what happened. Whether they did it or not. It’s nicely nuanced. I was
thrilled to bits to be a part of it.