All language subtitles for Strike.Back.S01.Extras.1080p.BluRay.DD2.0.x264-SbR_track4_[eng]

The starting point, of course, was
Chris Ryan's novel, Strike Back,

which I saw racked up
in Stansted airport, actually,

on the way out to see a friend
and I bought it.

And I read the jacket
and dived into the book.

And I thought it was exactly
the sort of thing I was looking to do.

When I read it,
I straight away thought, you know,

most people do get excited
with actions, helicopters, guns

and yes it is, you know,
that's exciting to play with,

but it's just a backdrop and in front
of that and in the middle of that

are these kind of relationships
and these human beings

that try to exist in
extraordinary circumstances.

And I think that's what
makes it interesting dramatically.

Five, four, three, two, one.

Go! Go! Go!

The series begins with a firefight
set in Basra in 2003.

And I go alongside four Special Forces,

of which Richard is one of them.

He is a killing machine.
He's SAS.

He came through the military
from about the age of 19.

His father was in the military.

He has all the siblings
who were also in the military.

He's got to a point in his career

where he's probably the best
he's ever going to be.

Shoot him.

Go! Shoot him!

What's the hold-up?

This catastrophic thing happens
when he's in an operation in Basra.

And he fails to kill a child
who has a bomb strapped to him,

which one would perceive
to be a heroic act.

In terms of military,
because that child then went on to

effectively kill three members
of his team,

it was deemed a failure
so he had to retire.

Basically his career fell apart.

And that's the beginning
of the story of Porter.

The interesting thing with John Porter,
Richard's character,

is that he has to be calm
within the midst of these war zones.

So he has this...
That's why he's so proficient.

Because he doesn't get
emotionally involved.

He's an automaton.

He's not a cold-blooded killer
but he operates very calmly

under great duress,
which is why he is so good.

With John Porter,
we have a really good hero.

You know. He's played by Richard,
it's quite silent,

it's quite quiet, quite determined.

You know, it's six episodes but
each episode is a double episode,

so you've got three movies.

And you've got a collection
of characters that you can relate to

and follow on this
sort of incredible journey.

The logistics for this show
are on an enormous scale.

I mean, it's helicopters
landing on rooftops,

it's huge explosions,
it's large battle sequences.

We have action on a huge scale,

but sometimes I think television
and film can be over-conscious

of trying to show them on the onscreen.

It's all there, the cameras are rolling,
everything's happening,

but very often the focus will be
on the character in the foreground,

not on the explosion behind.

And what that does is it draws you into
a much more intimate human experience.

Steve. Steve!

Porter!

Where are the other men?
Collinson, where's Mike and Keith?

- Fuck.
- They're dead.

Porter! Porter!

The interaction between
Porter and Collinson

is being very much affected by
that kind of relationship.

It's cowboys and Indians
in the playground,

but without detracting from the
seriousness of what we're trying to do.

They keep each other as close
as they can, and you know,

you keep your friends close
and your enemies even closer.

- John, it wasn't your fault.
- What did he say to me?

- What did...
- The kid.

The boy that I hit.

What exactly did he say to me?

It's an Arabic saying.

"I lay my life for your sake."
It's a debt of honour.

Both these men are locked
in one single event

that happened in the stairwell
in the first 10 minutes of the film.

And it will last for
the entire six hours,

the resolution of what
really happened in the stairwell,

as Layla says to Porter
at the end of episode four.

I need to know what happened
during the Bratton extraction in 2003.

Porter!

Where's Mike and Keith?

Where's Mike and Keith?

Why do you want to know?

Because I need to trust the people
my life depends on.

There's history between
you and Collinson.

Well, Layla works for Section 20

and is sort of the second-in-command
from Collinson.

She's a very kind of ambitious,
very driven woman

in a, obviously, a kind of predominantly
male-dominated kind of environment.

She is kind of very sharp

and someone who's quite tough
and doesn't take any nonsense.

And she has a very kind of
sceptical opinion of Porter at first,

because he hasn't sort of
risen through the ranks,

or come through the system
in the way that

most people in the position
he ends up in normally would.

You didn't think it worth mentioning

that Porter's been off active duty
for nearly eight years,

had borderline
post-traumatic stress disorder,

a 10% weakness in one arm,

and what effectively amounts
to a dishonourable discharge?

Layla, we have nothing.

Jodhi May has been absolutely fantastic.

She brings something so cerebral
to that character.

And has turned Layla into
a really interesting woman

who can be both political
and active in the theatre of war,

and I think that's a real achievement.

- Alpha Team, this is Section 20...
- Lieutenant, report!

Motherfucking...

The entire building's just gone up, sir.

I can't see them.
I can't see Alpha Team.

The control room is very exciting
because, you know,

you have this clock
running in the background

of sort of countdown of
how much time they have

before something's going to go wrong.

And just to have that there
and the setup, it's all live,

all this sort of equipment
that's around us is all interactable.

And then we were shooting something
with a live feed with Jodhi shooting

from a helicopter which
they'd set up outside.

So the sense of immediacy
makes it very exciting.

And the lovely thing about this story,
particularly with Danni as well,

because I've had to do
a lot of work with her,

is it feels that there's so far
to go with her.

And they're all powerful, strong,
witty and intelligent roles.

Her secret agenda, if there is one,

is this relationship she has
with John Porter,

which is still a bit ambiguous,
you know.

He's introduced to her
in an interesting way,

in that she's posing as a nurse
whilst he's being...

having his medical to be
reactivated into the Secret Service.

How are you feeling
this evening, Sergeant?

Absolutely bloody knackered, Sergeant.

Yeah, well, getting a body into shape
in a matter of days...

...is going to hurt.

- You saying I'm not in shape?
- No, no.

They call it a honey trap, you know.

Posing as a love interest to him
in order to find out

certain psychological things about him.

But then, as it goes, you know,
they slightly fall for each other

and it's possibly
an interesting relationship.

- There's a good boy.
- Oh, I'm a very good boy.

Well, then I think you probably

deserve a bit of a treat, don't you?

Hmm?

We don't want to turn off
the female audience.

I mean, it's important that there are
strong women in strong women roles.

But I think the scripts reflect that

and I think hopefully
there's a good balance.

Orla was one of the first characters
to actually shoot anything on the show.

You know, the first thing she did
was one of her anchor feeds from Basra.

Richard actually said to me at the time
that he thought,

"Now, I know where we are.
Now, I know the country we're in."

And yeah, it was a good thing
to kick off with.

I remember seeing the tape of it
and it was delivered so truthfully that

it was the first time
I sort of sat down and went,

"Okay, I know
what this show's going to be now."

Because up until that point,
I had no concept.

And the truthfulness with which she
played that first sequence, reporting...

"Katie Dartmouth, reporting from Basra,"

really kind of sort of
locked something into my stomach.

...undercurrent of violence
hides just beneath the surface.

With the US pull-out scheduled
for the end of the year,

many Iraqis I've spoken to are worried.

There's something about being
a correspondent that strikes me

as something very, very courageous.

It is very courageous,
especially in certain zones.

Obviously in a war zone like Iraq,

you would have to have
your wits about you.

She's been a significant part of
Porter's evolution, really.

Because again, it's something
to do with the nurturing.

You know, she's playing a reporter
who is taken hostage.

Oh, God! No! No! No!

A British TV journalist has just
been abducted near Basra.

Shit. You know who this is, don't you?

Yeah. We're trying to establish
if her kidnap is incidental

or directly related to her father.

- Any contact?
- Not yet.

All we know is that Katie was abducted
17 kilometres from Basra,

near a town called Al Haritha.

My character is in charge of Section 20,

which is a division of
military intelligence

that works very closely
with Special Forces.

The Section 20 is sort of
a clandestine group.

We sort of sit between
politicians and MoD.

We sort of try to sort things out

in the neutral zone.

- Major Collinson heads up the unit.
- Sir Patrick.

With Hugh's experience
in the field

and his specialist Arabic knowledge,

he's uniquely placed
to resolve this situation.

If you find Katie, what can you do?

Section 20 works closely
with UK Special Forces.

Once we have her location,
we can start implementing a rescue.

The character who is kidnapped,
played by Orla Brady,

realises something's happening when
she about to be sort of kidnapped.

So she takes a photograph
of the character coming towards her,

and takes the image
and texts it back to England.

Although it's ostensibly
an action story,

what is at its heart and what I thought
was a beautiful premise,

is a man who is, you know,
he's into his life,

he's, you know, he's not some youngster
at the beginning of his life,

in his life, he's made
a terrible mistake.

British Intelligence
authorities have confirmed

that this is likely to be the face
of one of her abductors,

disguised in an Iraqi police uniform...

British security forces believe
this photograph,

taken on Miss Dartmouth's
mobile phone...

He wants the chance to go back.
It's eating away at his soul.

And he's living and waiting
for the day when he can do that.

And then he gets a chance.

He's watching for it, he's waiting
for it and he gets that chance.

It's been very interesting

watching Richard go through
this process.

And he's had a huge amount
of training on this.

And he's spent very intensive time
and he's a very hard-working actor.

It's okay. It's okay.
It's only me. It's John.

We're going to get through this.
You and me.

You know that, don't you?

Yes.

She's taken hostage and is seriously,

in a seriously sort of damaged condition
when he finds her.

And again, having that thread through,

you know, that thread of
compassion in him

to be able to deal with her in
that state has been very interesting.

The scenes between Orla and Richard

in a prison cell
in a terrorist safe house

are some of the most
powerful things we could film.

Just going to loosen these ropes.
Make you more comfortable.

- Is that better?
- Yeah.

How does that arm feel?

There are scenes in the cell,
where he comes to rescue Katie,

that are, they're kind of,
they're almost like love scenes.

There's an intimacy to them.

You know, there's that bond
that would form

between somebody who is in grave danger

and somebody who comes
and says, "I'm going to help you."

Now listen.

They're going to come for me first.

That's our chance. I'll overpower them.

Then I'll come back for you.

Going to get you home, Katie.

I'll need to put this hood back on.
I'm sorry.

I understand.

You're, you know,
on a precipice together

and so you telescope 20 years
of knowing somebody into

a few short hours.

And you know them on a level that
you'll possibly never know anybody else.

Stay low.

Come on. Head down.

I think it's good to have
a context which is real, so you...

It just makes it more believable.
and also, in a sense, more interesting.

So, it's good, strong entertainment,
but with a reality.

It's a real rollercoaster.

There are explosions and helicopters.

It's ambitious.

And really exciting.

There's a lot of boys
playing bang-bang.

Go. Go. We've got this.

We've been using AK Kalashnikovs...

sniper rifle...

had an RPG fired at us...

Get down! Get down!

...some hand grenades...

- Grenade!
- Down!

Chris Ryan was
a real serving SAS soldier,

and he's still very, very involved

in the intelligence
and security industry to this day.

So his books have a veracity about them
that we're able to mine and tap into.

So I started training
with an ex-army fitness instructor.

So we kind of worked on
not just the shape of my body

but my fitness level
and trying to get into a point

where I had a shape
that looked like it had been...

It had evolved through work rather than
being in a gym, if you see what I mean.

So I did a lot of cross-training
and running with weights

that kind of replicate weaponry

and, sort of, trying to get movement
that would, you know,

replicate the kind of thing
you have to do in action.

It's always slightly challenging
to make it just look normal.

You know, we're running
through the bush with guns,

letting off AK-47s,
and it would be very easy to...

to just play-act.

But most actors I know want
to make sure that it looks authentic.

So we want to know how the gun works,
we want to know how we hold it,

where we hold it, what the kickback is,
how far the target is away,

how we reload.

So it's very exciting for us, as actors.

I'm the armourer on this production,
Strike Back.

My job, basically,
is to train the actors.

Don't drop your head down to it.
Don't worry.

You just...
You're looking straight in the door.

- The gun is there. Okay?
- Okay. Yeah.

With firearms, primarily it's actually
to make sure that the weapons work,

load them, unload them,

make sure the safety distances
are kept to,

nobody gets hurt
with the cases flying out.

We worked with weapons
and tactical training

with three SAS, ex-SAS guys,

who stayed with us the whole time on set
and picked us up on every single move,

and anything, any detail,
that wasn't truthful and wasn't real,

they'd be jumping on it straight away.

Well, we started off with the SAS
in Iraq,

where Porter walks around
with this rifle, called an M4,

on which we put torches,
it had a different sight on.

You can take this handle off and you
put different sighting systems onto it.

Shit.

Collinson, he had a MT-51,
which is specifically used by the SAS,

which is a.762 calibre.

We learnt how to strip the guns,
to reassemble, to fire, to...

Basically, to feel comfortable
in and around a gun, yeah,

and it took a few days, but we became...

We wanted to get to the stage
where during a take,

if something malfunctioned with a gun,

we would be able
to deal with it ourselves.

And so, as you would
in a firefight or a war,

be able to reload
and sort of be self-sufficient, really.

Andrew, when Andrew came here,
first of all, from the UK...

Be nice, Lance, come on.

...he didn't even know which end
was the right way to hold it.

But after a little bit of training
and whatever, he's a natural.

Look at that.
Natural-born, steely-eyed killer.

We've got all the gear and no idea.

The guys, the Iraqis, all ran around
with AK-47s.

Here's an example of a dummy one.

These are rubber, just for background,
and the guys running around,

um, you can't get too close to
the camera, as you can probably see.

It's just what
we call "ballistic masturbation".

Working on film sets, we've got sort of
extenuating circumstances, per se,

that we work with because
they're not live firing weapons.

And also, given the different scenes,

there's different requirements
that the director might ask for

that we've got to modify certain things
to make it look good for camera.

The mindset and the mentality
and the operational planning

of the kind of things
we're trying to do,

we're trying to be as authentic
about it as we can.

And that's essential to me,
and I think essential to the audience

and to the whole production,

that everything we do
feels real and authentic.

The armourer, the special effects guys,
the stunt guys, the safety officer,

we all work very, very closely together
because we've got to...

I mean, we've all got a common interest
in their safety and security on the set.

Just past this rock over here,
he's going to call ceasefire.

When he calls ceasefire,
what I want you to do is

you stand up and you're still looking,
you're scanning the bush,

and down here, and looking
where the dead bodies,

'cause there's dead guys lying there,
so you've got an eye on them, okay?

Come across. Come across.

Guys, not too far.

Okay, you see at the top,
there's S, R and A.

S is for safe, R is for repeat
or repetition, and A is for automatic.

What does R stand for? Rat-a-tat-tat.

Whenever a helicopter lands,
everybody wants to go to it,

so the challenge with the helicopter
mainly is

number one, no one must go
to the wrong side of the helicopter,

and number two,
no one must fall out of it.

From the back door backwards
is an absolute no-go area.

If you do want to try and get photos
with the chopper, you know,

somebody taking a nice photo of you,
don't touch the helicopter

because it's got all this sticky paint
on it, it's removable, okay?

You're going to walk away
with green hands

and you're going to stop us
from actually flying.

Things like caps, stuff like that,

absolutely no-no while
these rotors are going.

There's another good point here.

Because we've got a little bit
of high and low ground here,

the blades will go down,
depending on where the skids are.

So all the guys who are
in the chopper now

have already practised
going out nice and low.

If you do approach at any time,
please just check with me on the ground,

and keep down low.

Do not walk in there
because I have actually seen it before,

where somebody's decided
to go away without a head.

And it's not funny.
So I'm going to be super-serious.

From that door backwards,
if I see anybody,

I'm going to give them one warning,

after that, I'm going to take
my helicopter away.

When you're directing action,
it's, you know,

the action part of it is kind of,
you know,

I want it to feel almost incidental.

What's always important is
the character, the story,

the moments, the emotional beats,
of all of those action sequences.

Yeah, today, we've got a chopper
flying in an arc,

we've got a guy being rescued,
as far as the scene goes.

And, um, yeah, we've just got to watch

that the crew doesn't get
too close to the chopper,

stays away from the tail rotors,
that the pilots are happy at all times.

You get Richard and all
are safely on board, run round.

As soon as they're back on board,
the moment they're back on board,

well, it takes off,
leaving As'ad behind.

And so this camera will hopefully see
that as it rises, see As'ad is...

Stay low.

Come on. Head down.

Not you. On your knees.

Katie, sit here.

Zero, this is two-eight
Alpha. Hostage secure. Moving now.

- What?
- Don't move.

What are you doing? Wait! As'ad!

John! They're leaving him!

Layla, we need to go back now!

Orders from Collinson!

We all want to make something fantastic,

and certainly Dan has wanted to push
it out as much as possible, you know.

We want as many explosions as possible.

We want great scenes with the actors
jumping over cliffs, right,

dropping into the river, you know,
all that kind of stuff.

A lot of it we've achieved, actually.
I'm really pleased.

We've got some great production value.

Um, we shot it on 35mm, so it has
a real feature-film look about it.

And, you know, plenty of extras
and plenty of fun, basically.

And this is something
that's very unusual on television.

It takes an awful lot of planning
and an awful lot of people

to be involved in the design,
the storyboarding, the special effects,

the stunts,
to coordinate very, very clearly,

to make those achievable,
but also to make them believable.

I had been to South Africa
several times before.

I love South Africa, actually.
I love the climate,

I love the people, I love the locations.

And the most extraordinary thing
about South Africa is that

you can duplicate
almost anywhere in the world.

I think South Africa has got the
most incredible locations.

It's got great crews.

- Sound and speed. 661, take one.
- Mark.

You feel like the industry's building,
you know,

and that's, I think, quite exciting.

You know, I think the crews remind me
a lot of British crews.

Just get it done.

The locations for episode one and two
require us to recreate southern Iraq.

And we're able to do that
in South Africa

in an area called Upington
near the Namibian border

where they had flat deserts.

But also the Orange River creates
a fertile flood plain

very like the Euphrates delta,
which is somewhere I'd been, actually,

so when I saw it, I thought,
"Oh, my God."

You know, the opening of episode one,

is all about a hostage extraction
by an SAS team

that land on the roof of a safe house
in the centre of Basra

just before the beginning of
Operation Shock and Awe.

And we were filming it over a week

of nights here in Yeoville
in Johannesburg,

which has some fantastic '30s buildings
very like parts of Basra are today.

Five, four, three, two, one.

Go! Go! Go!

Johannesburg is clearly
a very vibrant city

and there's, you know,
lots going on here.

And then you don't have to go too far
before you're in Africa, you know.

And that's very exciting for me
and it's a huge privilege.

I couldn't quite work out why
we were coming to Africa to film.

But apart from the work ethic
from the crew,

which has been absolutely astonishing,

having the variety of landscapes
so accessible

and a consistent climate
is one of the reasons why we're here.

We've been, you know...
Joburg's been Basra,

Upington is obviously the desert.

I've never been to this country before

and to have Joburg and this,
you know, so close...

I mean, it's great. It think that's
probably why we're filming here as well,

because you get this
incredible landscape

within an hour's drive.
So, yeah, very lucky.