British dramas, fake Twitter accounts, and an accidental self-spiking: Douglas Booth joins us in the Pub Corner
No one to blame here
Douglas Booth has spent his entire life in the limelight, a teen acting prodigy first seen in Julian Fellow's film From Time to Time and the BBC's adaptation of Great Expectations opposite Gillian Anderson before catching the eye of Hollywood. His leading-man-good-looks has seen him act opposite Miley Cyrus in LOL, Sam Claflin in cult fave The Riot Club, and Emma Watson in Darren Aronofsky's Noah. But he'd give it all up for a quiet life. "Sometimes I look at my gardener and think: that looks like a nice life," he tells Shortlist as he settles down for a pint in our Pub Corner.
But that spotlight is going to be squarely back on the star this autumn, as he takes on one of his most challenging roles yet, starring as s DI Tom Radley, the partner to Michelle Keegan’s wily DI Emma Crane in ITV's new twisty thriller The Blame.
Based on the novel by Charlotte Langley, The Blame follows a local police investigation following the discovery of the body of a young figure skater in a quiet town. What starts as a disappearance quickly turns into a twisted chase through police corruption, cover-ups, and the shocking choke-hold institutionalised misogyny has on the truth. It's up to Crane to get to the bottom of it.
In between solving crimes and dismantling the patriarchy, Douglas popped into our favourite The Lucky Saint pub in Marylebone for a couple of ice cold IPAs to chat about the new show, his favourite roles, memories of Maggie Smith – and spilling the tea on getting starstruck by superstar chef Yotam Ottolenghi earlier in the day.
Shortlist: Cheers!
Douglas Booth: Cheers! Been looking forward to this all day.
SL: Your new show on ITV, The Blame is based on a great book by Charlotte Langley. Having wrapped this adaptation, is there any book you would like to adapt for the big screen yourself?
DB: I just finished reading a book called Lazar and it's a multigenerational story about a family in the Austrian Hungarian Empire.
It takes them from the beginning of the Empire all the way through until the 50s. It goes through both world wars, it covers the Soviet rule and it's just all about humanity really, and... I want to say generational trauma. That makes it sound kind of heavier than it is, but just generational trauma passed down and watching how each generation affects the next generation, on and on, with all these different backdrops through history.
I read it on holiday and absolutely loved it. It is written beautifully by [Nelio Biedermann]. I would love to adapt that so if there's a producer out there doing that right now I would play any one of those parts.
SL: Or all of them, a one man show! The Blame is quite an intense police drama, but do you have a go-to comfort watch?
DB: I'm trying to avoid saying a really boring thing, but football I find very comforting in the background. Also I just demolished the UK version of Love is Blind with my wife. I did Below Deck during Covid, and then I think my brain rotted out of my ears and I had to stop – but particularly like the Mediterranean one, with Captain Sandy.
SL: Yes Captain Sandy! I loved Ben too, Chef Ben from season one
DB: Yes! We had a crazy holiday once... where were we? We were somewhere with friends and we had this really drunk idea before New Year to try and hire Ben as a chef – it didn’t come to fruition, sadly, but he's crazy.
SL: It seems reality TV is especially good if you need a palette cleanser whilst watching – and filming – an intense drama?
DB: That's what we do. We've been watching DTF St Louis – it’s a comedy so it wasn't too intense but you'd watch that and then you’d be at the threshold because I mean it was fairly stressful. When he was behind the blinds watching that stuff happen... Wild people are freaky.
SL: You and Michelle in The Blame are a great duo, and you’ve had an incredible co-star history – wasn’t your first ever gig working with Maggie Smith?
DB: Yeah, my first ever film had Maggie Smith in it and I remember sitting at the read through and Dominic West was there, Timothy Spall and Maggie Smith were there – I was only 16 years old, didn't know what I was doing, couldn't act.
I sat there and Timothy Spall's phone went off during the read through and Maggie just turned and went “another voice over?”. It was very funny – she could just do that, but with a real sense of humour. It was amazing to work with her. I've been very lucky to have some great co-stars and Michelle is definitely one of the best.
From Time to Time
SL: If you could have had a guest star cameo in The Blame, who would you cast?
DB: I’d call on an old friend — Ray Winstone. We've worked together twice and he's one of my ultimate favourite actors to work with and to watch on screen. Ray is an absolute gentleman, he's one of the nicest people I've ever worked with.
I'd also want to cast him as a detective because I always feel like he's playing a criminal. I would love to be reunited with him because I worked with him on Great Expectations and I worked with him on Noah and he really looked after me. I remember I got to New York for the first day, I was there all on my own away from my family, I was only like 20 – the phone rings and he goes, "Dougie, it's Ray. I'm taking you out." And I was just like, "I love you so much." And then, we walked down to this sushi restaurant downtown and he was like “this street in the 70s, you wouldn't walk down here”.
He just gave me a tour of the whole of New York and just looked after me for six months. So I love him and he still texts me happy birthday every year.
Ray Winstone (L) and Douglas Booth (R) during the filming of Noah
SL: Jealous. Speaking of filming in glamorous places, whereabouts did you film The Blame?
DB: We filmed which was amazing because you don't get to shoot shows like this very often in London. So that was a real pleasure.
Obviously there's there's a lot of heavy themes and subject matter — you know, dealing with misogyny and institutional corruption. But we found time to have lots of fun. Michelle is famously one of the nicest people in television and she's genuinely really fun – and she's a big quiz quizzer. So you’d walk into the police detective boardroom, she'd be there with a marker and a whiteboard and she'd have the whole crew doing this general knowledge quiz.
SL: You’re a London local too – any favourite spots you like to go to?
DB: Well, I mean there's one that I probably shouldn't say because there's only seven seats and it's a place called Sushi Tetsu – I love it so much, but I actually haven't been in 5 years because I can't get in! I actually have on my phone like my mum, my wife, and then I have Sushi Tetsu. I used to do this thing where they had cancellations and I had a whole Twitter account set up just to follow the restaurant to see if they had a last minute cancellation.
I love Rovi, which is a Yotam Ottolenghi restaurant, actually. And I saw Ottolenghi earlier today and I was really starstruck. Brat I love too, but I’d always go for the steak over the turbot.
For a more everyday one, I love Dusty Knuckle. Their potato bread is insane, their sandwiches on a weekend – egg, chili, cheese vibe is just [**chef’s kiss gesture**], and their feta pastry!
SL: It sounds like you had a great time on The Blame, but were there any days that didn’t quite go to plan?
DB: You can be the judge of whether it's funny or not – it was wasn't very funny for me when it happened on this job but I was doing this eight page interrogation scene, we were breaking for lunch and I had a bit of a headache. So I go into my bag and normally I have ibuprofen just tucked on the inside zip up bit.
Went in, got the ibuprofen out, popped it, took two, I look at the packet and it's Nytol!
I'm like, 'What the actual f**k, then I was like, oh my god. Oh my god!'
I already felt like I was about to pass out, so I was imagining have to go back and do another five, six hours of filming while also going to sleep, so I made myself sick.
That was my big work fail, I was like half naked outside yelling 'help' – I didn't actually tell anyone because I was I was so embarrassed. Taking Nytol instead of an ibuprofen...
SL: It’s great seeing you play a policeman in The Blame – something you’ve not done before. And you’ve never been ‘typecast’ – you’ve been a flirty fairy in Sandman, you’ve done sci-fi, Western, drama. Is there anything still on the hitlist?
DB: I would love to work with Paul Thomas Anderson, I mean, every actor probably says that.
SL: Is there a current TV show you’d love to join?
DB: I love Severance. I'd love to be in Severance, but I also think maybe watching it is more fun than being in it? I just want to work with great people on good scripts.
SL: Is there anything you could picture yourself doing career-wise if you weren’t an actor?
DB: Sometimes I look at my gardener and think: that looks like a nice life. Otherwise, I’d love to do something on the water. I love boats and just anything to do with being on the water – maybe a pirate, I’d like to do that. Growing up I wanted to play Captain Jack Sparrow's son. Growing up, I just loved Pirates of Caribbean movies as a kid.
The Blame starts this Sunday 20th September on ITV1 and ITVX.
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