Dept. Q's Matthew Goode on the Show's Future and Reuniting With Scott Frank

18 years after working together on 2007's The Lookout, Goode couldn't resist playing a role that Frank wrote just for him.

The first time Matthew Goode starred in a production for writer-director Scott Frank, he played a Kansas gang leader who robbed a bank and took a hostage in a 2007 big-screen crime drama called The Lookout. By comparison, slipping into the role of a brilliant detective for Dept. Q should have been sweet relief. Emphasis on should have. 

"Scott believes in an actor’s versatility so I knew I was going to be doing something new," Goode says of the two-time Emmy winner (both for The Queen’s Gambit in 2021). "But then I read the script. I didn’t quite realize [the role] was going to beat me up a little. I think my wife was quite happy when this was finished."

Still, he’s excited for viewers to start the new nine-episode crime procedural series (now streaming on Netflix). Goode’s Carl Morck is a scraggly bearded detective in Edinburgh, Scotland, who’s mercilessly abrasive and still scarred by an on-the-job shooting that left a cop dead and his partner (Jamie Sives) paralyzed. His boss (Kate Dickie) doesn’t know what to do with him, so he’s sent to a dingy room with a few other misfits to solve cold cases. One involves a prosecutor (Chloe Pirrie) last seen on a ferry four years earlier. (The show is based on a bestselling Nordic noir book series by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen.)

"I like that Carl has this beautiful mind but realizes that he needs people," he says. "It’s fiction, but it’s a love letter to people out there who do this day in and day out. It’s taxing work, and we need to celebrate them."

For what it’s worth, Frank was right about Goode’s range. The Englishman who studied acting at London's Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art — and made his debut in the 2002 ABC TV movie Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister — doesn’t even have a signature part because his resume is so varied. Hello, who else can brag about portraying both Mandy Moore’s love interest in the Millennial rom-com fave Chasing Liberty and Hollywood legend Robert Evans in the 2022 limited series The Offer. (He was also nominated for a 2018 Emmy for his guest spot on The Crown).

A few days before Dept. Q's May 29 premiere date, Goode probed his role and more with The Television Academy.

Television Academy: You’ve cleaned up well since Dept. Q! Is it fair to assume the role required a lot of physical and emotional preparation?

Matthew Goode: There was a lot of interesting homework, which you get when you’re bestowed with such a wonderful character. Because of the transposition from Copenhagen [in the books] to Edinburgh, we had to find Carl and create a whole new socio-political and -economical history, which was fascinating to do. Then you had to look at PTSD. I didn't want to be a parasite, but I've had friends who served in the armed forces at that level and suffered similarly. So I was heavily absorbed — but ultimately, working with my old friend Scott again was a total joy.

And the beard?

I took a photograph of myself for the makeup department every day and printed them out. I could do a flip book for you. It was roughly 20-odd days.

Is it true that Scott wrote the role with you in mind?

That's what I read in the bit of press that he’s done. Whether that's true or not, I don't know.

How would you not know that?!

We don’t speak on that level. I think he knows my own personal psychology so well, and he wouldn't want to disconcert me by saying things like that. I'm a bit... I’m quite weird.

Then what appealed to you about Carl?

I was reading Scott’s script, and it reminded me of The Lookout. I was like, "Oh, this is what amazing, nuanced writing looks like." You don't get it all the time, so I really wanted to be involved.

Photo credit: Netflix

What do you think is really driving Carl to delve into his first cold case? Is he that ambitious, or is it for redemption?

Listen, he’s in a very serious business. He had been working on a case for 15 years. He can be incredibly rude, because his work matters to him. He can occasionally get things wildly wrong. But once he puts puzzles together, and when you have a mind that works like that, it's a very satisfying thing. And by the end — I won't give away what happens, obviously — he's not the kind of guy that takes a bow. He just gets on with it.

Did you play the character as if he goes through an evolution by the last episode?

I don’t know if there's a great change. People love Carl, and I think it's because he doesn't mince his words. We don't behave like that ourselves, so it's quite freeing to watch somebody just absolutely lose it and be that rude. But even though we do learn more about him, he’s still a bit of a mystery. I think one of Scott's geniuses is that he lets things unfold quite slowly whilst drip-feeding what he wants you to know about these characters. And, boy, all the characters are fascinating. [My costars] Shirley Henderson, Kelly Macdonald, Alexej Manvelov, Kate Dickie, Mark Bonar and Jamie Sivers are all brilliant actors.

You just said you didn’t want to give anything away, but all the episodes are available to binge. Do you recommend watching it like that?

It's a Scott Frank piece, so it's beautifully intelligent and surprising. It's within the crime thriller genre, so it's very dark — but it’s also got great levity and humor, and you love these characters by the end. So you can watch it at whatever pace you want to, but you might have to rewatch if you binge, because it's layered. There’s density to it.

What was the last TV series you binged?

During filming, I would get up at, like, 3:30 in the morning, have a bath and go through my lines for the day — and for the next couple of weeks — because I had a huge amount of dialogue. If I had done my homework properly — which I did, most of the time — I would then go and have a large pot of coffee and watch 30 minutes of [the 1994 docuseries] Baseball by Ken Burns. That was my treat. I just adored it.

Does that mean you’re up for a second season?

Well, there are 10 books! I know there will be discussions, but it hasn't been greenlit. It all comes down to viewing figures, which is well above my pay grade. But I can quite honestly say, from my bottom of my heart, this is one of the finest companies of actors that I've ever worked with. I don't know whether Scott will invite them all back, but we all want to do it again.


This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Dept. Q is now streaming on Netflix.