IF YOU DID a double take, maybe a devilishly debonair one, when you heard Jason Isaacs was going to play Cary Grant in new ITV series Archie, you aren’t alone. Isaacs did too. “Someone called me and said, ‘Do you want to play Cary Grant?’ ‘Not in a million fucking years!’” laughs the actor, talking exclusively to Empire. “Then they said, ‘How about playing Archibald Leach?’” And that was it. He was in.
Archibald Leach was, of course, a boy from Bristol who, due to a combination of good looks, fortune and talent, reinvented himself as Cary Grant, the matinée idol’s matinée idol, star of Charade and An Affair To Remember, and possessor of one of the most interesting accents in movie history. But Grant was very much a construct; off-camera, the reclusive Archie Leach was in the driving seat. And in the new series, that will become clear. Which means that Isaacs — who will play the star in his later life — doesn’t have to worry about an impression of that famous transatlantic accent. “Jeff [Pope, the show’s writer] has worked with Steve Coogan, and I’m sure Steve can do a brilliant Cary Grant,” says Isaacs. “I’ve no interest in doing that. I certainly will never look like him, but emotionally I hope I can begin to tiptoe in the shadow somewhere.”
Isaacs was far from a Grant scholar when he was offered the role. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a [Grant] film start to finish,” he chuckles. That’s now changed. His favourite today? “His Girl Friday. It’s really a musical with the songs cut, and he didn’t get to do that stuff later in life.” With this research under Isaacs’ belt, we could be in for a performance to remember. CHRIS HEWITT