Charlie Cox: 'Marvel scratched my James Bond itch'

Given the obvious parallels between Treason and James Bond (Kara is also played by Quantum of Solace star Olga Kurylenko), would Cox take up the James Bond mantle from Daniel Craig if the opportunity arose?

"My role in the Marvel Universe has kind of scratched that itch for me," he told RadioTimes.com.

"And if I've learned anything from doing this show, and I've done a couple of spy films and TV shows in my career – I did a BBC Two film called Legacy about 10 years ago – one of the things I've learned in my preparation for both that and Treason is that I would actually make a terrible spy.

"I'm a really bad liar and I need a lot of pretty basic stuff in the spy world explained to me a number of times before I can really grasp it, so I think that probably rules me out."

Cox went on to explain what sets Treason apart from Bond-style thrillers: "Despite what the trailer might suggest, because a trailer is a trailer, there's not a huge amount of action in the show, actually. A lot of it is dealing with the relationships with Adam's wife and his children and the pressures for someone who lives and works in that world, especially when they come under fire, especially when there's extreme adversity, how they handle that.

"That was one of the goals, how to set it apart from other shows in that genre."

He added: "I'm now a father to young children and I haven't had children on camera before, so I was really excited about that. So much of this story in the first episodes revolves around the emotional trauma with his [Lawrence's] daughter, so I was excited from an acting point of view to explore that, to see what it was like to be a father on screen and to dive into those feelings and those relationships.

"But if you take James Bond as the pinnacle of spy genre content, what was interesting to me about this was we got to see a little bit more behind the curtain, we got to see some of the quote unquote unflashy elements of what a spy has to deal with, and we get to go home with them.

"We get to go on a date night with them, he puts the children to bed, and he's asked pretty pointed questions by his innocent children at times when he's really questioning his own morality."

Treason will stream on Netflix from 26th December 2022. Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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