Lennie James as Det. Joe Geddes in AMC’s “Low Winter Sun” Episode 1
*There are three episodes left in the AMC drama “Low Winter Sun” — a.k.a. that other show that airs Sunday nights on AMC.
Based on a 2006 British miniseries, the cop drama premiered in August with Det. Frank Agnew (Mark Strong) coerced by a fellow officer into killing another detective. Lennie James plays Joe Geddes, the veteran homicide detective who convinces Agnew to kill.
The twist? Agnew and James are assigned to investigate the murder that he committed.
Lennie James in “The Walking Dead”
“Low Winter Sun” marks James’ third AMC project in the past four years. (He starred in the network’s “The Walking Dead” and its 2009 miniseries “The Prisoner.”) The 47-year-old British actor says he keeps coming back to AMC because of its unique storytelling.
“They don’t come at [stories] straight on. They’re not conventional, and I think at the heart of them it tends to be a really simple story,” James told us at the TCA Summer Press tour in July.
He offers Sunday’s “Best Drama” Emmy winner “Breaking Bad” as an example: “At the heart of ‘Breaking Bad,’ it’s a really simple story of a man who realizes he’s going to die and he wants to leave something behind for his family. How he goes about that is slightly messed up, but, you know, everyone each to their own.
Mark Strong and Lennie James in AMC’s “Low Winter Sun”
“I think the heart of ‘Low Winter Sun,’ it’s a very simple premise. Two cops kill another cop, and then they’re put in charge of the investigation to find themselves, and they’re in on it. [It’s] a really unusual story. This isn’t a whodunit because we know within the five minutes who’s done it, and we’re not trying to solve the case. As Mark has said, and I’ve taken credit for, we’re trying to unsolve a case. We’re not trying to solve one.”
Strong plays Agnew in both the British and U.S. versions. However, AMC moved the setting from Edinburgh to Detroit, where the show films on location.
Below, James says despite the city filing for bankruptcy during production, filming in Detroit for four months wasn’t so bad.
“Low Winter Sun” airs Sunday nights at 10 p.m. on AMC. Below, James talks about his characters on “The Walking Dead” and “Low Winter Sun.”
