Set in the south of France in 1963, the story picks up 20 years after the conclusion of “The Maltese Falcon” when Spade is pulled out of retirement and into a horrifying murder investigation. Humphrey Bogart was iconic as the original Sam Spade, but Clive Owen absolutely redefines this character with charisma, vitality, and modern glamor, which you can see for yourself.

In love with Spain, specifically with Madrid, the actor confessed that he travels to Spain at least once a month to enjoy the vibrant capital of the country.

Q:  And how difficult was it to be an American with a French accent, and then how did you decide who and how he was going to be?

A:  Well, because we were shooting in France with predominantly a lot of French actors, I felt I needed to ground Sam Spade in, and even though we're setting this in the early '60s, I wanted to feel the origins of the guy that's in "The Maltese Falcon."  So, to be honest with you, I kind of leant into Bogart quite heavily because I needed to ground myself in that kind of vibe and feel because I was surrounded by French actors not doing that American thing.  So, I, you know, I leaned in heavily and did a lot of work sort of perfecting that.  And then the French, I started to learn French thinking I'd have the time to properly fully learn French, and then realized I was spending a lot of time learning stuff that I didn't -- wasn't going to be necessary.  I wasn't going to do an exam.  I wasn't going to be tested on grammar.  So, I learned French phonetically.  I made sure that I understood the scenes inside/out in English, and then learned the French part by sound, like I would an accent.

Q:  Clive, after seeing and just binging the entire show because I loved it so much because of that Dashiell Hammett atmosphere you've created, is a fish out of water in the south of France. Are you a fish out of water in that atmosphere?

A:  It was tough. It was a very tough shoot. It was a very, very lovely, beautiful shoot. We shot in Bazuel, we shot outside of Montpellier, we shot outside of Paris. But all of that was beautiful. But what I think is brilliant about taking him, moving him 20 years ahead and putting him in a completely new environment is if, when you try and do noir, we think we've seen it all before. We see the tropes, we see the images, and it's very quick, you can very quickly get comfortable with it and think, oh, I know this, I know what this is. I know what we're doing. And just by making that leap and setting him somewhere else, but still maintaining the flavor of that original Dashiell Hammett stuff and those films of that time, it reinvigorates it naturally, you don't have to try to sort of keep, how do we make this fresh and relevant? It already is, because it's a totally new spin on the genre.

Q:  Do you like to travel for work?

A:  No, I mean, you know, I never choose any work based on the location, but it was, you know, it was very exciting and a big thrill when I realized we were going to be shooting in the south of France, and also, the cast that Scott and Tom put together were just so hugely impressive. And Spade has a kind of different relationship with every character in that. And every single person that I would do scenes with, it was, it was a thrill to sort of bounce this great dialogue with, and, and play. So, there were many times during the shoot of this show where I literally said to myself as an actor, this is exactly where I want to be. I love the genre. I have great dialogue to speak, and I did it with great actors.

Q: Sam Spade seems to me to be a person who is two steps ahead of everyone else as a chess player, yet his math concerning his daughter is absolutely flawed. And I'm wondering, how could this be?

A:  Well, you know, I'm not sure you're right, in that I think that maybe Sam does know, but just is in denial. And that's what I think. I think that from the beginning of the thing we set up, there's a reason that he looks after the place where she stays, there's a reason that he takes her in very quickly, that, and, and as the story develops, you begin to realize that the whole thing about Spade and the origins of the character is so tight, and sort of gives nothing away, and doesn't get sentimental or over emote. And in a situation like that, where he's being really challenged emotionally, I think he's sort of, you know, he's just not necessarily revealing it.

 Q:  It seems like a very shrewd decision to lean into the Bogart quality of Sam Spade. What did you learn from sort of studying Bogart, both as an actor and in that very definitive role that he played?

A:  I mean, the decision to lean in is partly because I'm a huge fan of his, so it gave me an excuse to drown in everything Bogart again. And, you know, it's odd, because Bogart played the character, and really, we're playing the character that Dashiell Hammett wrote, but because he was a fish out of water, and because I was surrounded by French actors, I needed a grounding. I needed to sort of center myself in the origins of the part. And that seemed vocally the most sensible thing to do, is to lean into that, make sure. So, I lifted all of Bogart's dialogue, just his dialogue, nobody else's, from the Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, put them on a Voice Note. And that was my sort of go-to at the beginning of every day, just to remind myself of, you know, the origins of the guy that I was playing with. And the one thing that came clear very quickly is that you think Bogart is very laconic and very cool.  He's super-quick with his dialogue.  Very, very nimble.  You can tell that he did theater because the sort of shaping of the language is super-fast and so well-crafted, and it became very clear and, you know, I was blessed because I could've been doing Sam Spade and had somebody wrote a version that got nowhere near the kind of vernacular that we love from those books and that noir period.  But Scott nailed the rhythm and intonation so beautifully, and I just realized that any time I had anything of any length to speak, that speed was everything because that's -- I mean that's always the case with good writing is that you don't mess with the rhythm because the rhythm's there for you.  Just play it.  And the thing about when you watch those movies at that time, they don't stop and slow down and let you into the emotions.  The language does it.  You rip through the language, the rhythm is there for you, and it's like, you know, for an actor, it's like getting in a great car.  It's like just driving it.  Don't complicate it.  Don't get in the way of the rhythm because it's all there for you.

Q: We saw you in “Murder at the End of the World” which was a very opposite kind of guy verbally because Andy, he's on top of everything else but he's kind of clumsy with his words.  He was more of a thinking guy.  So, first of all, how close together were these two projects? 

A: Well, that's the joy of what I do, really, is that you go there.  You have all these different experiences, and you play these different parts.  Throughout my career, you know, I started in the theater.  And when you do theater, you want to play different parts, and it's all about keeping it as mixed and varied as possible.  But there's no question that because I started in the theater, I appreciate and value great dialogue.  When you've got that, as an actor, you've got something to go to work with.  And I was blessed in this, and the dialogue was just -- sometimes, as an actor, you approach a project, and you're filling in gaps or you're trying to invigorate life into it.  When I got these scripts, it's just about living up to it.

Q: What Spanish Author do you like?

A: I can't remember any, but I do like Don Quixote. I think it is a fantastic story.

Q: Do you speak Spanish?

A:  A little bit, yes. I go to Spain a lot. Primarily because I do have friends there and I love the food. I’m a big football fan so I go a lot to see football games in Madrid. I love to see Bellingham. I shot in Madrid many years ago and I made really good friends there. They are like me; they love food and wine, and they know Madrid really well. I go very often just to eat and see friends. I love that city!

María Estévez

Correspondent writer