Richard Flood is looking happy and relaxed. Sitting outside in a dark t-shirt on a balmy October morning, surrounded by the beautiful greenery of a Roman garden, the Dublin actor doesn't display any nerves about his leading turn in the mystery drama The Gone debuting on Irish TV screens this Sunday.
"I’m very excited," he told RTÉ Entertainment. "It’s always exciting when you’ve been away working on something and now [family and friends] get to see what you were doing all that time. I think it’s something different for Irish TV so we’re all very interested to see how it goes down."
He plays Detective Theo Richter in the Ireland-New Zealand co-production. Although he’s no stranger to playing law enforcement, having come to fame as a Northern Irish police officer on the international crime drama Crossing Lines and becoming well-known to Irish audiences as Garda James McKay on the drama Red Rock, it’s fair to say this role marks an unconventional turn for the 41-year-old star.
"It’s something different for me, something I was looking for," he said. "Something that was probably a bit darker, a bit rougher, had a lot of inner turmoil going on..."
The script, co-written by Anna McPartlin and Michael Bennet, couldn’t have crossed his desk at a better time. Having finished up a three-year stint as Dr Cormac Hayes on the medical behemoth Grey’s Anatomy, the Dubliner was ready for something new. More specifically, something that would involve a trans-Atlantic relocation for his family, the Italian actress Gabriella Pession and their 9-year-old son Giulio.
"It all happened at the right time really," he shared. "We were living in America at the time, we were in LA and we were looking to move back to Europe. I hadn’t worked in Ireland for a while so I was really eager to find an Irish project.
"There’s so much talent in Ireland - I really wanted to work with people back there and The Gone came up. It was funny because we were deciding to move back to Europe, to Rome particularly, and my wife was saying 'I bet we’ll move back and suddenly you’ll get a job in New Zealand or something’."
So goes the life of an actor. Flood relished the opportunity to get into the head of Theo Richter, a somewhat opaque character who is clearly carrying a lot of pain. We meet the detective at a turning point in his career.
"We don’t really know why, or what’s going on, but this is his last job," Flood said of his on-screen counterpart. "He’s thrown into circumstances that are difficult for him personally and it’s also very difficult in the wider aspect of the situation that they’re in, the life and death aspect it."
He described getting into Theo’s head as a "bit-by-bit process".
"You do as much as you can before, but a lot of it is happening when you’re down in the environment, on the set, working with the other actors, working with the directors", he said.
"[Peter Meteherangi Tikao Burger] who directed the first three episodes gave me a lot of room to flesh it out and bring some of my own ideas to it. It felt like a very collaborative process which was another really exciting aspect of the project."
And what a project it was. Shot on-location between Dublin and New Zealand’s Auckland and Te Aroha, the show has a sense of expansiveness and epicness not always associated with the crime genre.
"That was really important to me, I was always talking about how we needed to capture the epicness of the landscape", Flood enthused. "We were shooting in Auckland for a while, it’s a lovely city, but then once we got out into the country, into this small town Te Ahora, that was really when I started to feel the size of the place, the epic nature of the landscape.
"But then, a lot of it looked a lot like Ireland," he added with a laugh.
Being sensitive to Māori culture was a top priority for the show. "Being on set with a lot of Māori actors and Māori crew was really important for the project, and hearing their own language, te reo, that plays a really big role in the show.
"The New Zealand people, the Kiwis, are brilliant, they’re very like us. It was a very easy coming together of cultures and spirits."
Casting the role of his co-lead was crucial to the success of the series. Native New Zealander Acushla-Tara Kupe plays Theo’s Kiwi counterpart, Diana Huia. She is a natural but inexperienced detective who is assigned to her first major case, an investigation into a missing young couple from Ireland who have possible ties to a vicious Irish drug cartel.
Flood and Kupe ["Kush"] hit it off right away.
"You sign onto a project and you don’t know who you’re working with and you have to build a relationship, but with Kush, everybody calls her Kush, it was pretty instant.
"We met the first time at a dinner, I’d just gotten off the flight. I was all over the place with the jet lag, but we just got on straight away. She’s an amazing actress and she’s a fabulous person.
"[She is] very clear, understands what she wants to do, she does a lot of homework, a lot of preparation. She works in a different way than I do but we matched up very well and we really liked what each other were doing. Every day we had a blast really.
"She’s Māori as well, she speaks the language. She’s very connected with her roots and that aspect of her culture. She taught me a lot about what it means to be Māori in New Zealand and the history of their culture. It was amazing on all fronts, it was a great relationship. I was very lucky."
"It wasn’t just, come in and say your lines and go home, there was much more going on," he continued about his experience making the show. "There was just a great spirit around it the whole time, everybody was really into the project, and everybody working for the same thing.
"It doesn’t always happen like that, sometimes it’s just a job, it's just a gig, but this one just felt different. I think it was partly because of the location, what the stories were about, what the characters were going through... It all felt very personal and very important, it felt important to us."
The Gone has aired in New Zealand, where some fans have already been calling out for a second season. Flood is open to the idea of stepping into Theo’s shoes again. "I think there’s probably more story to tell," he commented ambiguously. "I think a second season would definitely be worth doing."
The 41-year-old actor and his family are now living in Rome. It’s clear the Italian way of life suits his easy-going, low-key personality compared to the comparatively cut-throat nature of LA’s showbiz scene. However, he is eternally grateful for the experience of working on Grey’s, which he famously landed just a few days after arriving in Los Angeles.
"I’ve been to LA many times and it hasn’t worked like that," he said with a laugh. "I’d been in LA, I’d done Shameless for two years, then I came back to Italy, my wife was doing a show here, a long show, so I was here for six months.
"I was getting itchy feet again so I went back. I flew in on the Friday, had the meeting on the Tuesday and on the Thursday it was kind of a done deal, so it happened quickly."
He continued: "But then I had to call home, because it’s a ten-month shoot, so I rang my wife and said ‘I'm not able to do this on my own, do you want to come?’. She was very supportive, so we got everybody over and then Covid hit, lockdowns, there was a lot going on. It wasn’t the easiest time to be moving country.
"But it was an amazing experience. You get thrown in at the deep end but that’s par for the course and that’s certainly the way I like it. I like to get in on set and anything outside of the set, the scale of the show, the popularity, it’s one of the biggest shows in the world, that goes out the window.
"You’re on set, trying to find your way into the character, engaging with everybody else. It’s the same as any job, no matter how small the set, the nuts and bolts of the job are the same."
But he admits it was a huge change for his family to adapt to life across the pond.
"Find a house, find schools, there was a lot to contend with," he shared. "We didn’t have the easiest time. I’ve always found, even when I’ve been there much younger, LA was always fun but I always found it quite a lonely place.
"There’s some sort of darkness in the city, I can’t really put my finger on it. We were definitely feeling that. We were quite isolated, we didn’t know many people. But slowly but surely, we made some amazing friends."
"In LA you really have to find yourself your own little community because it’s so massive. It was a learning process, but we came out the back end of it. We were happy to move back to Europe, but we were very glad that we did it, that we lived those few years and got the best out of it that we could have. We now have a lot of friends there so we could always go back, but Rome is now home."
He met his wife Gabriella when they both starred in the TV series Crossing Lines. Richard reckons there are advantages and disadvantages to having a fellow actor as a partner.
"Obviously we understand what the other person needs when they’re working, but it can be tricky because we have to balance our schedules so they don’t overlap," he said. "We have a nine-year-old son and we always want one of us to be around at least.
"There are sacrifices on both sides, she has a very big career in Italy and she closed the door on it for those years to come to LA. And we’d just moved back [to Italy] and I went to New Zealand and she was here on her own for nearly four months with our son. They’re big undertakings. But she understands what I need and she’s been working a lot this year so I’ve been at home doing the father bit, so we support each other wholeheartedly. It works for us."
The actor seems to have reached a very contented place in his life living in Rome.
"The rhythm in Rome suits my rhythm. It’s a bit laid back, you take it easy, they really know how to live. The only time the Romans are in a rush is when they’re in a car!", he said with a laugh.
"I've found a really nice work/life balance here. The Italian people and the friends we have are amazing, they’ve been really welcoming. The Italian and the Irish are very akin to each other as well, I feel very happy."
After working many years in front of the camera, Flood is interested in pursuing more behind-the-scenes projects. He’s currently working on an Italy-set series which he wrote himself.
"Because of what the show is about it’s a difficult one to put together," he said. "At different times we’ve had interest and then Covid came. It’s just about finding the right team to put it together.
"I’m enjoying the producing, writing, the building side, it’s new and it’s difficult but it’s really fulfilling. I think in the future both myself and Gabriella - that’s an area that we’d like to be moving into.
"But always staying in front of the camera too with the right projects and the right scripts. That’s where my first love is, everything else I’m enjoying a lot, but I love being on the stage or in front of the camera."
The Gone starts Sunday 22 October at 9.30pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
