Apple TV's New Serial Killer Thriller Turns Stephen Graham Into a Monster in Behind-the-Scenes Look

After his award-winning turn on the Netflix series Adolescence, playing the father of a teenage murderer, Stephen Graham stars as a serial killer on the new Apple TV series Nocturne. The ten-episode series debuts with a two-episode premiere today, October 29. Collider is proud to exclusively present a behind-the-scenes featurette, in which Graham details his transformation into a killer.

Nocturne stars Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) as Jonah Lynn, an ex-cop who’s still recovering from the death of his wife and son, and the capture of deadly serial murderer Jurek Walter (Graham). Two of Walter’s alleged victims, a brother and sister, were never found…until now, when the brother unexpectedly turns up alive. Now, Lynn is re-teaming with his FBI agent protégé, Saga Bauer (Zazie Beetz, They Will Kill You) to get to the bottom of it. Did Walter, who’s still securely imprisoned, have a secret accomplice? Or is something else in play?The series also stars Bill Camp (Presumed Innocent), Rory Culkin (Under the Banner of Heaven), Chrissy Metz (This Is Us), Gary Carr (The Deuce), and Poorna Jagannathan (Lanterns).

In the video, we get a taste of Graham’s unsettling performance as Walter, his British accent replaced with an eerily calm drawl. He discusses the killer’s manipulative nature; he doesn’t hide who he is, and how it doesn’t bode well for Lynn and Bauer as they try to understand him. Is Graham worried about getting into Walter’s head himself? He doesn’t seem too concerned: as he says, he’s “completely comfortable with my darkness.” You can find out how comfortable you are with it when Nocturne premieres, exclusively on Apple TV.

Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours.
Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from
the encounter.

Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you
completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the
conversation is.

• Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He
  never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
• You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve
  is exactly the door he would knock on.
• The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence.
  It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
• He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.

Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is
after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.

• The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence
  against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
• He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool
  you would normally reach for.
• His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend
  the rest of your life proving him wrong.
• He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.

Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work
out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.

• Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from:
  a mind the equal of the hero’s, pointed the wrong way.
• You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he
  has already built the room.
• This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs
  the game to be worth playing.
• It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.

Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that
is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.

• Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the
  answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
• You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no
  interest in how capable you are.
• No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences
  quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
• Call it. He will wait.

Who Are the Creatives Behind ‘Nocturne’?

Nocturne is adapted from the Swedish mystery novels Lazarus and The Sandman by the husband-and-wife team of Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril, who write under the joint pen name Lars Kepler. The series was created by Rowan Joffé (Ballad of a Small Player) and developed and showrun by John Hlavin (Shooter). Tim Van Patten, a veteran of The Sopranos, The Wire, and Game of Thrones, directs the first two episodes. Executive producers on the series include Joffé, Hlavin, Van Patten, Schreiber, Beetz, and David Rysdahl.

Nocturne premieres today, October 29, exclusively on Apple TV, with a two-episode premiere; new episodes will debut weekly. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

Nocturne