Daniel Mays, known for his roles in Line of Duty, Code 404, A Thousand Blows, and White Lines, takes on the challenging role of John Worboys in ITV's true crime drama Believe Me. The four-part series, which airs on Monday nights at 9pm, focuses on the victims of the infamous 'black cab rapist'.
Why Daniel Mays Was Cast
Creator Jeff Pope revealed during an ITV Q&A why he chose the 48-year-old actor for the part. 'I thought what was so interesting about what I imagined and what Danny delivered, you see him on screen, and you kind of have a reaction to him. You trust him, he's engaging, and I thought it was so important that the audience understood why the women in his taxi accepted drinks from him.'
Pope emphasised that Worboys was 'incredibly personable, or he pretended to be an incredibly personable, kind of guy.' He added, 'So we spend a lot of time in the first episode when the character that Aimee-Ffion Edwards plays, when she gets into Danny's cab, we don't rush that. It was so important you didn't get in the cab and think 'what, you accepted a drink from him?', this was a normal, regular, apparently chirpy, cheerful guy.'
The Challenge of Playing Worboys
Mays admitted that portraying the notorious criminal was far from easy. 'It was a huge thing to take on, but alongside that, I could recognise the acting challenge as well. You're being asked to humanise someone who is evil essentially, and it's about delving beneath those headlines and trying to play him as three-dimensionally as possible.'
He confessed, 'I underestimated how difficult that was going to be. I thought, I've got 26 years of experience as a professional actor, but I'm not going to lie to you, it did, at times, take its toll. It was a difficult thing and an unsettling thing to portray and very isolating by its very nature.'
Believe Me is available to watch on ITVX.
