Ross Kemp: 'TV hard man is a f**king cliché I hate – I'm too old to be tough'

"I don't think you've seen anything like it before," Kemp tells RadioTimes.com of his latest five-part series.

Filmed over four months, Mafia and Britain sees its host travel across the globe to meet academic experts, retired FBI agents and even reformed mobsters who once made millions from drugs and other contraband while ruthlessly eliminating the opposition.

"I don't remember the faces," one tells Kemp of his victims. "I can remember the sound of the bodies hitting the ground."

"That's better than the script of The Sopranos," Kemp boggles.

Having spent two decades in gang territory, warzones and inside prisons, meeting astounding figures along the way, you might suspect Kemp would now have become nonchalant.

But he insists that's not the case: "The normalisation of it is something that's always slightly jaw-dropping – particularly the casual attitude towards death."

Encouraging those formerly involved in Mafia activity to take part in his new programme wasn't always easy, with Kemp noting that it could have been "dangerous, potentially lethal" for them to grant him an interview.

"I was trying to speak to contributors who were with us one minute, then out the other – you've got to understand, there was naturally a lot of paranoia around doing a programme like this."

Kemp himself is even uneasy about tackling such "a highly sensitive and contentious issue", but he insists that Mafia and Britain is intended as a historical document and is not an exposé of organised crime groups operating today.

"I'm concerned about when this goes out and the impact that it'll have. But let's be very, very clear – this isn't an investigation into the Mafia and what they're doing right now. I wouldn't do that, because it's too dangerous, way too dangerous.

"This isn't a hard-hitting undercover investigation of the present actions of organised crime groups around the United Kingdom – if it was, I'd be wearing body armour when I went out... and I don't really want to have to do that."

The appeal for Kemp of this particular subject matter was the chance to document the historical ties between Britain and the mob that many of us have either been unaware of or simply turned a blind eye to.

"There's more than just Italian Mafia operating in the United Kingdom – there are lots of organised crime groups here, and we've used 'the Mafia', that used to mean Cosa Nostra [the Sicilian Mafia], to mean all sorts... it's a large umbrella.

"But proving it? Not very easy. Do you want to lift that stone and look underneath? Me? Not personally."

The activities of criminal networks is something that, after 20 years, Kemp says still fascinates him – though he also admits that the subject matter of his documentaries is somewhat dictated by what the public expect of him.

"It's horses for courses – no one's going to commission me to do the gardens of the stately homes of Great Britain. I would love to do that – I love history and I think you'd probably get some really good stories – but that's not what people want me to do.

"That's a hangover from 'TV hard man', which is a f**king cliché that I hate. The truth is I'm getting too old to be tough... I can't [even] deal with my own children."

He's not lost any of his passion, though, for venturing where others might fear to tread, in order to tell stories that he feels are important.

"I wish I could make Extreme World for the rest of my life [Kemp's Sky series exploring violence, criminality, the drug trades and other global issues ran from 2011-2017]– unfortunately, it's getting harder and harder to make programmes like that.

"I put something forward to someone the other day and they went, 'I don't think it's got enough layers in it...' What the f**k does that mean?

"It's a shame because the world hasn't got any better in the time since I made it. I would suggest, unfortunately, in my time on the planet we've done more things to destroy it and we've created more troubles.

"Things have not got any better, so there should be more films being made to make people aware of where we are, and what are the causes."

Read more:

• Ross Kemp says he'd "think twice" but won't rule out EastEnders return
• Ross Kemp recalls moment he was "starved of oxygen" on Deep Sea Treasure Hunter

Ross Kemp: Mafia and Britain airs Tuesdays from 10th September at 9pm on Sky History – an accompanying book based on the series will also be published on 19th September from Octopus Books.

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