Menacing with charisma

Mark Strong as gangster Harry Starks (left) puts his charm to work in The Long Firm.

If Tony Soprano were to fight fellow TV gangster Harry Starks, who would you put your money on?

"I'd have to say Harry," says Mark Strong, the British actor who plays him in the gangster drama, The Long Firm.

"I think Tony would lumber around. Harry would get a few extra quick jabs in, maybe a quick kick to the balls then turn around and smack him in the back of the head."

You won't see fists flying in the first episode of The Long Firm (Prime, Sunday 8.35pm). But you will see a stylish, smart, slow-burning thriller. The BBC's four-part dramatisation of Jake Arnott's debut novel of the same name is set in the gangster underworld of the 1960s, an "incredibly cool" period, says Strong.

The central character of Harry Starks is incredibly cool himself. Based on real-life gay gangster Reggie Kray, Starks is handsome, fearless, and will resort to blackmail or a white-hot poker if he has to. But he's also a charming, intelligent gay man at the centre of a macho world, a working-class guy who is "reaching for the stars".

For Strong, it was the role of a lifetime. "It's so easy to get characters that are two-dimensional, gangsters specifically," he says. "They keep trotting out these gangster series where all they do is wave guns around and look mean. But Harry Starks I just really loved playing because he's so attractive and repellent at the same time."

Starks is violent but doesn't like to kill, preferring to use his potent magnetism to entice people into his web, usually to the point where they find they can't get out. Says Strong, "He's so frightening that all he has to do is heat that poker up and wave it in front of somebody's face and they'll tell him everything."

In each of the four vignettes, Harry's nature is revealed through the accounts of contrasting characters who cross his path: the bankrupt lord who is keen to indulge his penchant for young boys, the fading starlet who Starks persuades to help him establish his porn empire (a role loosely based on EastEnders actress Barbara Windsor), the washed-out pill-dealer roped into investigating a grisly murder and the disenchanted lecturer who helps Starks make a desperate escape.

Strong had previously played a detective on the TV drama Prime Suspect, a doctor on Fields of Gold, and in his latest film, Revolver, directed by Guy Ritchie, a gangster.

But despite his brooding good looks and popularity for authoritarian roles, getting the part on The Long Firm took almost as much brainpower as playing him, he says.

"I think they really had a good old look to find this person because the character is so multilayered ... that made it hard. How do you walk in and be scary and attractive at the same time?

"They're also looking at what you'll be like to work with, whether you're going to be professional. You can't really walk in and threaten everyone because you'll scare the wits out of them."

When he finally won the role, he was thrilled to discover his glamorous wardrobe. The suits he wears in the series were made by a tailor who worked in the 1960s, and the set is consistent with the era's lavish style.

Before he took the role, Strong met Arnott and the pair found they shared a fascination with the times.

"I think it's because the 50s were quite strict. By and large people were rational and still dressed like their parents. Then suddenly the 60s happened and it was all about the fashion and music and self-expression. The Pill arrived, girls came out of their shells, boys allowed themselves not to be identified by their fathers."

As for the gangster genre itself, Strong still wonders what makes it so fascinating.

"I think it's something to do with power, being your own man and I think a man who is powerful and cares about the way he looks is dangerously attractive to both men and women. I think for the women it's power and sex and for the men it's power and envy." 

On screen

* What: The Long Firm

* Where: Prime

* When: First part of four starts Sunday, 8.35pm