able to rebuild her beloved teashop, which she had had to close during the war because of food shortages. There is no evidence of foul play regarding Richard Abernethieâs death.
Michael was utterly convincing, playing the rude, self-centred , hard drinking and gambling George Abernethie with a posh English accent.
The long-running TV series Trial & Retribution , created by Lynda La Plante, was a gritty and superior procedural cop drama that, in each story, showed the crime, the investigation and the trial. It starred David Hayman as DCS Mike Walker and later, Victoria Smurfit as DCI Roisin Connor. In 2006 Michael filmed the two-part story, Sins of the Father , which was shown on ITV1 in January of the following year.
The story revolved around pretty teenager Emily Harrogate (played by Carey Mulligan), the daughter of a seemingly happily married middle-class family. When she is found dead at the bottom of the cellar stairs by her parents John and Deirdre, the marks on her neck and the force with which she fell suggest she was attacked. When Connor and DS Satchell investigate, they discover that this outwardly stable family is falling apart. It emerges that John is having an affair with a work colleague and that his troubled teenage son, James, cannot provide an alibi for his whereabouts on the night of Emilyâs death. A breakthrough in the case comes when an eyewitness leadsthe cops to a teenage neighbour, Michael Summerby (Andrew Lee Potts), who was Emilyâs secret boyfriend. His flimsy alibi makes him the number-one suspect and he is eventually charged with her murder.
Michael played the ladâs defence barrister, Douglas Nesbitt. He has little to work with, since Summerby cannot provide an alibi. Then, while in court, Summerby all but confesses to being responsible for her death, stating that he âwas to blameâ. He confesses that he was in her parentsâ house at the time of her death and that she was hysterically backing away from him before falling down the cellar stairs. The jury have little trouble in pronouncing him guilty but itâs a miscarriage of justice. John and his son James are hiding a secret and John is quite prepared to destroy the life of an innocent man.
For a change, Michael was able to play the barrister as an Irishman and his calm and methodical courtroom demeanour contrasted well with the excitable and emotional performance by an impressive Andrew Lee Potts.
Towards the end of 2005 Michael started a gruelling 10 weeks of physical training. It wasnât just a keep-fit routine; rather it was the prelude to a movie that was to bring him to the consciousness of America.
CHAPTER FIVE
HOLLYWOOD VIA ANCIENT GREECE
F or a shy man, the idea of appearing larger than life on cinema screens in bikini-style leather trunks and little else may have sounded rather daunting but Michael took it in his stride. After all, he had appeared butt naked in a TV commercial!
The stylised sand-and-sandals movie 300 took a very modern approach to dramatising an ancient battle. It was a story that resonated with Michael because he had been taught it at primary school back in Killarney – how in 480 BC King Leonidas mustered 300 super-fit Spartans to fight a massive Persian army marching towards Greece. The Spartans headed towards a narrow pass at Thermopylae to give themselves a fighting chance and a fierce battletook place before they were eventually overwhelmed by the Persians.
Director Zak Snyder, who had directed the 2004 zombie flick Dawn of the Dead , wanted to create a visually strong movie based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, so that the scenes in the ancient tale resembled high-quality comic-book art. There would be much use of CGI and other high-tech special effects but the main cast of Spartans would not be allowed to rely on such wizardry to get into shape. So in September 2005, after Michael had been cast as the impassioned young warrior Stelios, he and five other
Michael was utterly convincing, playing the rude, self-centred , hard drinking and gambling George Abernethie with a posh English accent.
The long-running TV series Trial & Retribution , created by Lynda La Plante, was a gritty and superior procedural cop drama that, in each story, showed the crime, the investigation and the trial. It starred David Hayman as DCS Mike Walker and later, Victoria Smurfit as DCI Roisin Connor. In 2006 Michael filmed the two-part story, Sins of the Father , which was shown on ITV1 in January of the following year.
The story revolved around pretty teenager Emily Harrogate (played by Carey Mulligan), the daughter of a seemingly happily married middle-class family. When she is found dead at the bottom of the cellar stairs by her parents John and Deirdre, the marks on her neck and the force with which she fell suggest she was attacked. When Connor and DS Satchell investigate, they discover that this outwardly stable family is falling apart. It emerges that John is having an affair with a work colleague and that his troubled teenage son, James, cannot provide an alibi for his whereabouts on the night of Emilyâs death. A breakthrough in the case comes when an eyewitness leadsthe cops to a teenage neighbour, Michael Summerby (Andrew Lee Potts), who was Emilyâs secret boyfriend. His flimsy alibi makes him the number-one suspect and he is eventually charged with her murder.
Michael played the ladâs defence barrister, Douglas Nesbitt. He has little to work with, since Summerby cannot provide an alibi. Then, while in court, Summerby all but confesses to being responsible for her death, stating that he âwas to blameâ. He confesses that he was in her parentsâ house at the time of her death and that she was hysterically backing away from him before falling down the cellar stairs. The jury have little trouble in pronouncing him guilty but itâs a miscarriage of justice. John and his son James are hiding a secret and John is quite prepared to destroy the life of an innocent man.
For a change, Michael was able to play the barrister as an Irishman and his calm and methodical courtroom demeanour contrasted well with the excitable and emotional performance by an impressive Andrew Lee Potts.
Towards the end of 2005 Michael started a gruelling 10 weeks of physical training. It wasnât just a keep-fit routine; rather it was the prelude to a movie that was to bring him to the consciousness of America.
CHAPTER FIVE
HOLLYWOOD VIA ANCIENT GREECE
F or a shy man, the idea of appearing larger than life on cinema screens in bikini-style leather trunks and little else may have sounded rather daunting but Michael took it in his stride. After all, he had appeared butt naked in a TV commercial!
The stylised sand-and-sandals movie 300 took a very modern approach to dramatising an ancient battle. It was a story that resonated with Michael because he had been taught it at primary school back in Killarney – how in 480 BC King Leonidas mustered 300 super-fit Spartans to fight a massive Persian army marching towards Greece. The Spartans headed towards a narrow pass at Thermopylae to give themselves a fighting chance and a fierce battletook place before they were eventually overwhelmed by the Persians.
Director Zak Snyder, who had directed the 2004 zombie flick Dawn of the Dead , wanted to create a visually strong movie based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, so that the scenes in the ancient tale resembled high-quality comic-book art. There would be much use of CGI and other high-tech special effects but the main cast of Spartans would not be allowed to rely on such wizardry to get into shape. So in September 2005, after Michael had been cast as the impassioned young warrior Stelios, he and five other
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