Russell Tovey feels grateful whenever he hears that his projects, particularly his "queer work", have meant something to people.
In the new drama Plainclothes, Tom Blyth plays an undercover cop assigned to lure and arrest gay men, and he defies protocol by falling in love with a target, Tovey's character Andrew.
Writer-director Carmen Emmi subconsciously wrote Andrew with the Being Human actor in mind because he's been a huge fan of his for 10 years, mostly because of his TV show Looking and stage performance in Angels in America.
Tovey, who is openly gay, was touched when he found out how much his work meant to Emmi during the press tour.
"My ego's huge," he told Cover Media. "It's lovely to hear that your work connects. And it's lovely to hear, especially when you're making queer work, how queer people see that as a beacon of hope. Especially in today's climate, because we need that more than ever."
As part of the casting process, Tovey and Blyth met on Zoom so Emmi could confirm that they "were right together". Once the film entered production, the British actors worked with an intimacy coordinator to choreograph their sex scenes.
"We didn't have a lot of time for rehearsals because we shot (the whole project) in 18 days, but I made sure to block out moments in the schedule where Tom, Russell and I could work with an intimacy coordinator, Joey Massa, to choreograph the scenes, which were really important," Emmi explained. "I'm glad that we did that, just so we could feel our way through the scenes. We didn't really have a ton of time but I just wanted to build quiet moments on the set for them to explore their characters."
Because they had only 18 days to shoot the drama, the actors weren't able to film many takes, so Emmi "trusted the actors" and whether they "felt good" about a take or needed to do it again.
"I think that's also what really helped make our days because there was just no time. You had to either just trust your instincts or flounder," he added.
Plainclothes is in U.K. cinemas from Friday 10 October.
