RichardArmitageNet News

The Strike Back page on Sky1′s website is now taking shape, with detailed pages as follows:

• About the Show: The Story
• Characters
  
• Meet the Cast
• Photos page (warning, the photos show spoilers). Now increased to 43 photos
• Production Facts page which reveals how much care was taken to avoid dehydration during filming.
• Pictures from the Strike Back Premiere
• Wallpapers
• Videos there is 1 trailer on that page at the moment, which shows scenes we have seen in previous trailers

Richard on John Porter page: In Richard’s interview, he describes the character of John Porter as ‘a kind of killing machine who’s discovered quite a serious flaw whereby compassion kicks in and he allows his heart to rule his head’

He also discusses why he took the role, what was involved in the training, his competitive nature, and he reveals that he wasn’t allowed to do the cliff jump despite performing many of the other stunts as it was too dangerous – presumably this is the jump that we’ve seen in the trailers.

In the interview with Shelley Conn, we discover that Danni’s relationship with John Porter is fairly ambiguous. She says ‘I think it’ll be interesting for the audience because they’ll be seeing it more from Porter’s point of view than anybody else’s, so they won’t necessarily know how much is real.’

In Orla Brady’s interview she says that this is a story ‘of people and how they cope with and how they survive moments in life when things go very badly wrong. There’s also something very beautiful about the idea of a man who’s made a terrible mistake and then has the chance to set it right.’

And when discussing Richard she gives high praise indeed. ‘Very few actors could carry off this part, in that very few actors have the physique to be believable as a big SAS guy, yet have a deep sensitivity. He has both these things and that’s a very powerful combination.’

What do you think of the Sky Strike Back website? Please leave your comments below.

BAFTA will be showing the first two episodes of Strike Back at the Princess Anne Theatre in London at 6.15pm on Monday 19 April.

After the screening, there will be a Q&A with the Director Dan Percival and Executive Producers Elaine Pyke, Head of Drama at Sky, and Andy Harries of Left Bank Pictures.

Full details are here where you can also purchase tickets.

Sky have issued a press release for Strike Back, which confirms that the series will air during the week 1 – 7 May 2010 on Sky1 and Sky HD. There will be 6 x 1 hour episodes, although each pair of episodes tells a separate story.

There is also a detailed episode synopsis further down the press release, but be warned this contains many spoilers for the show.

Richard is quoted as saying: “It’s an ambitious project for television. We’ve made three feature films on a TV budget and schedule. But the advantage of that is that these three feature films are linked together so you get a really interesting character arc through all episodes. American television is being brave and doing that at the moment, and this is stepping into that area.”

There’s some new clips of Strike Back, mostly showing clips of Richard as John Porter on the Sky magazine online edition. We have captured the clip here.

To view the whole Sky1 drama promotion go to Sky magazine online, then click in the corner of the page to turn through the magazine to page 11. Click on the ‘Drama’ box and Strike Back is the second drama mentioned. Although the clips are short, it’s well worth viewing.

Here’s a couple of screencaps and the rest are in our Strike Back gallery here. Apologies about the quality, that’s the best we could get off the sky page. But I think it’s worth it

An article has appeared on the Sky website advertising Strike Back, starring Richard Armitage as John Porter. You can read the full article here. Scroll down the page to read the full article under the heading ‘Chris Ryan’s Strike Back’.

A larger picture can be seen the in Sky gallery, but we’ve also posted it here:

Richard’s United Agents page has updated to confirm his new role as John Porter in Strike Back.