If there's one thing you can take for granted with acting, it's that nothing can be taken for granted.
It's one of those disciplines that tends to appeal to the more adventurous types. If superannuation and a steady income is what you're looking for, a life on stage or screen is most definitely not for you.
Knocking around the set of Taken Down, RTÉ's latest crime drama from the gang behind Love/Hate, it's striking how broad a church this acting business is. There are people from all sorts of backgrounds and life experiences working together to make the sereis, before scattering to the four corners of the Earth once it's all wrapped.
Take Enoch Frost for example. He's typically untypical. The British actor is of Ghanaian heritage and was born in London, where he lived in a south side children's home until he was adopted by English parents when he was seven.
He grew up in Somerset with his adoptive family who were avid theatre goers and had several relatives who were successful actors, including the legendary larynx that was Donald Sinden (do yourself a favour and Google his voice if you're unfamiliar - it's amazing), who encouraged Enoch to follow a career in drama.
As well as appearing in British TV staples such as Holby City and The Bill, he's had turns in a couple of really successful films, which must have put a big smile on the face of his agent. But it's pretty certain that Irish TV watchers will forever remember him as Benjamin, the terrifying gangster behind the brothel and sex-trafficking in Taken Down. You just can't take your eyes off him.
Despite playing someone truly nasty, Enoch is a very pleasant chap in person, although he admits – with a huge grin on his face – that he's lived a little. "Let's just say I've led a colourful existence," he says.
On with the show then...
(John Byrne) Your film CV includes James Bond flick Skyfall and Guardians of the Galaxy. Now you're playing a bad-ass running a brothel in Taken Down...
(Enoch Frost) That's the thing about this job – the variation. This is just a perfect example of the variants. And it's been a 2-3-year hiatus, because I had a child. I took some time out to do some fathering. This is my first job back.
A job like this is just like a dream. It's amazing. Because you don't know whether it's going to be a panto or the next big thing or... you just don't know. But I've struck gold with this one.
Can you give us a bit of background into how you managed get the role of Benjamin?
It was a self-tape. I don't know whether you know much about that method of auditioning but it's quite commonplace. And the whole thing is, as an actor you find it hard to believe that you're ever going to get a job as a result of a self-tape because you're just there in a room with an iPhone, or some recording device. And you don't have anyone directing you and you turn this thing out – usually under duress – because they've only just sent you a script, blah blah, trying to remember your lines.
And then it goes off, never to be heard from again, you know? So, I've always been cynical about self-tapes, but it's worked a treat here.
What was it about the script that appealed to you?
His kind of split personality is... not schizophrenia, he's not medically sick, but he's a bit of a nutter, y'know? It was a real opportunity to flex your artistic muscle – as an actor you just want to be able to play as many colours on the spectrum as possible.
So, one minute this guy is being compassionate, and then he's taking coke and selling it to Eastern Europeans and Albanians, and then he's talking about his two kids and wife. It's just a real balancing act. The underlying energy is one of deception. He's got all these layers.
What are your thoughts on the immigrant situation and direct provision centres?
I get the feeling that quite a few Irish people aren't aware of the situation. We dramatise it but I don't think it's that far from the truth. I think it's pretty accurate, shocking – and I think it's timely.
We've got to get that out there somehow, and by beaming it into people's living rooms you've got more chance of people sitting up and taking notice.
Benjamin really showed his nasty side in last week's episode! Is it tricky acting out those dark scenes?
There's a scene where I, as Benjamin, was basically using voodoo to programme one of our victims [Flora, played by Florence Adebambo]. She like, fourteen. Or maybe younger. We're trying to get her into our brothel, we've got her chained in a room, where we're depriving her of, y'know, everything: food, light, sleep. Basically trying to re-programme her, or brainwash her, whatever term you want to use.
And that was pretty tricky, because she was crying at points during my demonic monologue. And there's this grey area, when you act, between real life and you creating this fantasy. She's so young and I was really aware of that, when you're that young, you can be traumatised by things that, as an adult – she might think it's fine on the day and then she might still be thinking about it years down the line.
The fact that I basically made her cry by being so horrible to her. I just hope that she can see the difference, or tell the difference, between the drama and the reality.
Taken Down continues on Sundays on RTÉ One
