Changing the narrative: Peter Capaldi, Cush Jumbo learn lessons during journey on 'Criminal Record'

It’s a battle of old school versus new school.

That’s what both Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo experienced during their time filming the Apple TV+ series “Criminal Record.”

The series started streaming on Wednesday, Jan. 10, with two episodes and continues with weekly episodes through February.

Set in the heart of contemporary London, “Criminal Record,” stars Academy Award and BAFTA Award winner Capaldi as Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty and Laurence Olivier Award nominee Jumbo, who plays Detective Sergeant June Lenker, as detectives in a tug of war over a historic murder conviction.

Over eight episodes, this gripping series explores issues of race, institutional failure, and the quest to find common ground in a polarized Britain.

“When we were developing these characters from the baseline of feeling like I was quite close to June in terms of where she begins,” Jumbo says. “Being a mother and a working mother and being in a relationship, but I actually feel that June is so much more fearless than me. And she has the ability to become so hooked on an idea that it means that she chooses to do things that put her in sometimes really dangerous situations, but all because she deeply feels that she wants to help people. I think he’s very admirable and really admire her as a character.”

Changing the narrative: Peter Capaldi, Cush Jumbo learn lessons during journey on 'Criminal Record'

Stepping into Hegarty’s shoes, Capaldi learned a lot about himself.

“I think I learned that no one is ever complete,” Capaldi says. “Particularly when you’re acting, when you’re playing characters. Sometimes it’s the material that just presents you with a character that goes from A to Z, and that’s it. But with these characters, there was a constant change and constant shifting of where we perceive them to be. And I think that reflected a reality in life. And that it’s a mistake to assume that people stop growing. I say this from the point of view of being a man of a certain age. It’s a mistake to assume that you’re complete.”

“Criminal Record” was initially sparked by a conversation between BAFTA Scotland Award-winning executive producer Elaine Collins and BAFTA Award-nominated executive producer and writer Paul Rutman.

Rutman and Collins had been looking to develop a new project together since creating “Vera,” from the books by Ann Cleeves, now found that the timing was right.

“I’d been knocking around an idea about people confessing and then later retracting, and, with co-producer Clare Batty, read a lot about it and watched many documentaries on the subject,” recalls Collins. “Simultaneously, I was looking for a show to develop for Peter and Cush.”

Rutman, who, with Collins, had cast Jumbo in an early series of “Vera,” had wanted to write something specifically for the two actors, both of whom were keen to work together on a television project.

“I love them both as actors and for a while they had been talking about doing something in the crime space. What most intrigued me” notes Rutman, “was the idea of this battle of wits, this clash of wills, between two characters – a thriller that draws its tension from the push and pull of two detectives, June and Hegarty. What starts as a disagreement over an old murder case soon pivots into something more obsessive, a private war, a generational stand-off, conducted by these two figures who see and feel their city so differently. And in the middle of this battle is the case itself: a murder in London 11 years earlier, that achieved brief media notoriety and was then largely forgotten. But for the family left behind, nothing is resolved. Nobody knows what to believe. Nobody can move on.”

“This project was unusual in the sense that it was developed through my wife’s company, and it was written for Cush and I,” Capaldi says of how he became involved in the series. “So I was invested in it from the start because I was watching it grow and the character was generated from discussions that we had about the kind of character I’d like to play.”

“We all wanted to do something that was set in London and that was about the police force – past, present and future,” adds Jumbo. “We spent time with Paul coming up with ideas and working with the writers’ room. I always try to work on things that challenge the way we look at the world, and I hadn’t done anything that I thought adequately dug into what London was really about when it came to the police force. I was really excited to work on that, and with Peter.”