Andrew Scott has played a number of iconic roles in his career thus far, including the hot priest in Fleabag and the villainous C in Spectre, but he is still perhaps best known for his role as Jim Moriarty in the BBC's Sherlock.
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Scott played the villain between 2010 and 2017, and now he is starring as a similarly manipulative character in Netflix's Ripley, a new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr Ripley.
Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme, however, Scott was quick to lay out the distinctions between the two characters, explaining that "it doesn't feel similar" playing them.
He explained: "Of course there are elements... it's dark, it's very dark, and it's very different to my own genial kind of personality.
"But it does feel different. I felt like when I was playing James Moriarty that I was playing a villain, and for some reason I really retreat against calling Tom Ripley a villain."
Andrew Scott as Jim Moriarty in Sherlock. BBC
He continued: "I think he’s an anti-hero, that's what I think he is, and I think it’s up to me to make the audience imagine what it’s like to be Tom Ripley, not to be a victim of Tom Ripley. That's what we should feel like.
"We should empathise with him, and I don't necessarily think that that's the job of an antagonist or a villain. Tom is the protagonist in this, and so for that reason I just don't see him in that way."
Scott also said of playing Ripley: "I don't think he's a natural-born killer, he just ends up doing some things out of necessity - and I think he's got charm, and I think there's a sort of vulnerability to the character that I really liked."
The new Netflix series, which is arriving on Thursday 4th April, follows Scott's character Ripley as he scrapes by as a grifter in early 1960s New York, when he is hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy to try to convince his vagabond son to return home.
Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss recently said that he and Steven Moffat would "love to make a Sherlock movie", calling it "the natural thing to do" but adding that there were difficulties involved.
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James Hibbs is a Drama Writer for Radio Times, covering programmes across both streaming platforms and linear channels. He previously worked in PR, first for a B2B agency and subsequently for international TV production company Fremantle. He possesses a BA in English and Theatre Studies and an NCTJ Level 5 Diploma in Journalism.
