The Audition Room: How the cast of Strike Back got their roles

The audition process can be a daunting (and sometimes weird) experience for any actor wanting to get a role – especially one you love.

Thankfully, if it all works out for the best, you’ll be on set hearing the director yell ‘action!’ before you know it, and soon you’ll be a star of stage and screen, picking up some shiny new statues to sit proudly on your mantelpiece.

So we’re going behind the curtain to see what it is exactly some of our faves have had to do in order to bag their role.

Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk, Dan MacPherson, Alin Sumarwata and Jamie Bamber told us exactly what they had to do to get their parts in gripping spy-drama, Strike Back, which returns tonight on Sky One.

Dan MacPherson – Samuel Wyatt

‘I self taped for the role of Wyatt in LA. I had just finished working on a film and returned home to my wife and our new – and still empty – apartment. The best thing about no furniture were that all the walls were perfect backdrops for audition tapes!

Wyatt was originally southern, a bit more of a cowboy, and i did the tape with more of a southern twang. I immediately connected with this guy. I loved digging down to find the complexities in him that were evident from the very first scenes.

After a couple of weeks I heard I was on a shortlist. Then I heard I was off the list and I didn’t get the job. Then I heard a week later I was back on the list, and was required in London for chemistry tests with the other lead cast hopefuls. Only problem was that I had a scored a role in a Fox series called APB, and was shooting in Chicago, and I couldn’t make the London dates. I was back off the list!

A week or two passed, the APB dates changed, along with the London dates and the planets aligned and I was able to go from Chicago to London for the final auditions, but I had to be back in Chicago immediately after. It was tight, but doable!

It was a 3-day acting boot camp. The first two days were mixing and matching different Macs, Wyatts, Novins etc. There were 3 Wyatts, all Australians and we all knew each other. There were 3 or 4 Novins, but from the moment Alin opened her mouth in a scene, she was the obvious choice.

I heard I was on a shortlist. Then I heard I was off the list and I didn’t get the job. Then I heard a week later I was back on the list!

I saw that guy from Luther walk in. I freaked out, i love that show, it was my favourite show! Suddenly here I am spending 2 days with Warren Brown. What a top gent he is, great actor and we had an instant rapport. Thankfully it didn’t go unnoticed and we were right in the mix.

Our audition scenes were a mix of action scenes, and my absolute favourite, a high speed getaway where Mac tells Wyatt to steal a getaway car, and Wyatt manages to steal a hearse, complete with a Russian mobsters dead mother in the casket in the back. The scene was so fun showrunner Jack Lothian wrote it into episode six of last season.

The final day of auditions was a military boot camp run by then military advisor Paul Hornsby. We were put in a mini bus and driven a couple of hours south. We marched, sprinted, climbed, rolled and patrolled for a day, to see who had the mettle to handle a job like Strike Back.

I flew back to LA and tried to put it out of my mind. About a month later, I was sitting on a plane on the runway, heading back to LA. My phone rang just as we began to taxi for takeoff. I couldn’t answer it, but it was my agent calling. For nearly four hours I was kept in suspense, when finally as we approached LA, the wifi began to work and texts messages started floating in. I got a message from director and EP MJ Bassett, officially welcoming me aboard.

It had been a few years in the making, but Strike Back was the break through that I had been working so hard to get.’

Alin Sumarwata – Gracie Novin

‘The audition came through from casting in London, via my Australian agents while I was In Los Angeles. There were two scenes, one with Mac and one with Wyatt.

They both involved monologues, peppered with expletives, describing her life in outback Australia prior to joining the Army. I hadn’t auditioned for at least six months as I wanted to focus on being a full time mum to give my two young girls as much stability and routine whilst we travelled to LA for my husband’s work.

I had no intention to get back to acting for at least another two years but this role jumped off the page and grabbed me. I could feel her in my bones and literally turned to my husband and said “This one is mine”. I have never felt anywhere near that kind of conviction and confidence about a role, let alone to say it out loud.

It’s not everyday you get a chance to portray the role of a Soldier in the Special Forces Unit. In Australia this position has only been opened up to women in 2016. I put down a self tape for the two scenes and also felt I needed to add a reel of me doing some kickboxing with a trainer at the local gym.

I had no intention to get back to acting for at least another two years, but this role jumped off the page and grabbed me.

A few weeks later I got a call to go to London for the call back auditions which involved several days of chemistry reads and a boot camp. There were several actors going for each of the four roles for the new section 20.

The first day we were all brought in separate time slots but by day three all remaining actors were in the same room with other potential cast combinations getting swapped in and out for various scenes, it almost felt like playing a theatre sport in front of the Execs. The final day was bootcamp in an army barracks in Sussex. This involved firing live weapons and undergoing going drills and obstacle courses.

Even though I got the call for the role a few days later, that boot camp demonstrated to me just how much more I needed to work to be physically ready for the role. It has been a ride of a lifetime and I’m incredibly grateful for it all.

This was the line used to pitch the role role of Novin in the character summary and I think it still accurately sums her up to this day.
“You want it fixed? I can do that. You want it blown up? No problem. You want it blown up and then fixed..? Gonna need a few hours.”’

Jamie Bamber – Colonel Coltrane

‘I was in LA when the script was sent to me and initially they wanted me to meet them in London. I thought I might be able to do the meeting while waiting for my connecting homebound flight from Heathrow to Marseille. So I was going to land after an 11-hour flight from LA to Heathrow, get on the Heathrow Express to London, go straight to the meeting at 1pm, get back on the train to the airport at 2.30pm to fly home to France at 4.30pm. I thought yeah; this could work nicely.

Then I realised I had forgotten you land the following day from Los Angeles, so essentially I was about to show up, not only very jet-lagged, but also, more significantly, a day late…

I did a tape instead. Actually I prefer taping anyway. You avoid all the unnecessary small talk, travel and can curate your own audition. Jack Lothian, our amazing writer and showrunner, also kindly sent through an A4 worth of character biography, which had me at “What if James Bond were to become “M” ?” That was the clincher for me.

I was asked to choose a scene from the first script. I chose the character’s introduction, greeting the team on the airfield, and joined it up with the ensuing briefing about the current mission. A monologue almost- which makes it great for a self tape because you don’t need to ask a friend to bore their tits off reading with you.

There was some other dialogue, but not much; I just recorded the voices myself afterwards with some fun accents after leaving suitable gaps in my performance. I slicked my hair, put on a round neck green sweater reminiscent of the late 70s Action Man, and pressed record on iMovie.

Jack Lothian [the showrunner] has since told me that the only reason he hired me was because I mimed shooting and being shot at…

I actually really enjoyed doing it. I was at my friend, Edward James Olmos’ house, and he has a lovely kitchen table in a glass conservatory with lots of light, and a Golden retriever called Moe, who was thankfully not too interested in being my scene partner. Ed was out directing a movie. So other than confused looks from the gardener I had the place to myself.

The other scene had been sent separately and had been especially written to involve some action, taking a hostage and avoiding being shot. It was an early indication that they intended the character to be a man of action and not just a CO. Which encouraged me because Coltrane was late 50s in the script and at least I felt here I could get an edge over any more distinguished rivals.

Jack Lothian (show runner) has since told me that the only reason he hired me was because I mimed shooting and being shot at. Normally miming is not recommended. But reading straight to camera is dull at the best of times. My top tip – if you can’t see the hands on camera it’s not really miming anyway. Bill Eagles, our director, apparently said some good things about my tape on a podcast. I’ll keep doing my tapes with off screen, non-existent, props, and full-body “english” (as they say in LA)…

As for rivals. I have no idea who else pursued this role or who they courted for it. And even if I did know, actor’s omertà dictates that you don’t let on who you triumphantly left in your dust…

I found I got the role not long after landing back in France, just before my birthday, about two weeks before they flew me out to Malaysia to start. The tape had done the trick. No stressful lay-over meeting required. Tech has its pluses…’

Strike Back returns tonight at 9pm on Sky One. 

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