Matthew Goode Talks Becoming Netflix’s New Leading Man in ‘Dept. Q’ — And Why He Won’t Be in ‘Downton Abbey 3’

Matthew Goode is ready — and a little nervous — to unleash Dept. Q on the world.

“I’m on eggshells at the moment,” the English actor tells The Hollywood Reporter about his new Scotland-set police thriller premiering on Netflix Thursday, May 29. “I don’t know how people will react to it.”

Luckily, Goode, star of Downton Abbey, The Crown and The Imitation Game, to name a few, has Scott Frank at the helm. Screenwriter-turned-director Frank, best known to viewers as the creator of Anya Taylor-Joy’s wildly popular 2020 miniseries The Queen’s Gambit, is turning his attention to the adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olson’s Nordic crime noir novels.

“The Queen’s Gambit is special, and that’s him, that’s his mind, that’s his ability, that’s his direction, his authority,” Goode gushes about Dept. Q mastermind Frank. “And he’s only getting more authoritative and more brilliant. He’s like the second coming of Sidney Lumet. He’s not letting you down. He’s cinematic, he’s intelligent, and he never, ever treats an audience anything other than being as intelligent as he is.”

Frank’s script relocates Adler-Olson’s central character from Copenhagen to the grizzly, gothic streets of Edinburgh. Goode plays DCI Carl Morck, a brilliant cop, but a terrible colleague. His razor-sharp sarcasm has made him no friends in the Edinburgh Police. After a shooting that leaves a young PC dead and his partner paralyzed, Goode’s character finds himself exiled to the basement as the sole member of Dept. Q., a newly formed cold case unit.

But the department is a PR stunt, there to distract the public from the failures of an under-resourced, failing police force that is glad to see the back of Morck. More by accident than design, Carl starts to build a gang of waifs and strays who have everything to prove. “So, when the stone-cold trail of a prominent civil servant who disappeared several years ago starts to heat up,” a plot synopsis teases, “Carl is back doing what he does best — rattling cages and refusing to take no for an answer.”

The ensemble cast also includes Kelly Macdonald, Chloe Pirrie, Alexej Manvelov, Leah Byrne, Mark Bonnar, Jamie Sives, Shirley Henderson and Kate Dickie.

Below, Goode talks with THR about becoming a new leading man of Netflix, shying away from the weight of fame and why he won’t be returning as beloved Downton Abbey character Henry Talbot in the franchise’s upcoming final film.

Matthew, how did Dept. Q and DCI Carl Morck enter your life?

Well, I’m very lucky to share [agent] Joel Lubin with Scott [Frank]. Ironically, [Lubin]’s my American agent, so he actually flew to Winnipeg when I first worked with Scott in 2005 [on crime movie The Lookout]. At some point, he started repping Scott as well. So to cut a long story short, he phoned me up and said, “Scott’s got this new series coming out. He’s sort of thinking about you for the lead in it.” I was like, “Really?” After The Queen’s Gambit, no one was more surprised than me.

So he sent me the scripts and I was just like, “Oh, I’m in. I’m in.” I read the first two and I was like, “If he wants me, he can have me.” I just love his scripts, I love his words. It’s the same reaction I have when I saw The Lookout script. I don’t know. He has a gift, he really is very gifted. So, yeah, that’s how it came to me. And then obviously he had to go and bat for me, convince Netflix and Left Bank [Pictures]. And luckily, I’d worked with Left Bank on The Crown a bit, so they didn’t hate me. But I think it’s a bit of a departure because it’s a different kind of role. Scott thought I could do it, but obviously, people like to pigeon hole you, so it’s the second time he’s given me a role where I don’t think other directors would necessarily agree.

How do you imagine that conversation with Scott, Netflix, and Left Bank went down? What do you think he said?

Well, he’s pretty confident as well. I think coming off the back of a worldwide hit that was The Queen’s Gambit, he probably would have said, “This is who I would like.” And they just went, “Okay, look, [Frank] doesn’t seem to misstep, so…”

Why were you surprised when Scott approached you for Dept. Q?

I’m always surprised when anyone’s approached me about anything. It’s just the nature of [the industry]. Also, it was just after the writers’ strike, and one’s career — unless you reach the top where you have your own company… It’s like a river that you don’t really know where it’s going to take you. There are going to be certain moments where you have huge financial insecurity and you’re going to have to take whatever is around. And then sometimes, someone like Scott comes along and just pops a little gift into your lap. It’s few and far between.

So you read the script, you’re floored by it – what is it that gets you so excited?

I just love the character and how he behaves. It’s essentially the naughty boy in me. [Laughs.] It’s so great to see someone who doesn’t care about being that rude or physical. I got lost in the story. I got hoodwinked by the structure, and I don’t want to give too much away… But, episode one and two I was like, “Ah, okay, all right. Okay. You made me feel a bit stupid.” It’s just the sheer level of intelligence.

But it’s more about the dynamic between the other characters. It’s not just one of those detective things where it’s all about myself and a partner. That’s one of the reasons that Scott attracts such brilliant other actors. Yes, they’re brilliant Scottish actors. But take the Scottish away, they’re just brilliant actors, full stop. They’re crème de la crème people. Some of them I desperately wanted to work with for a really long time. And you can only attract the level of those people if the writing is three dimensional and nuanced and great, and that’s what Scott gives you.

How would you tease viewers in who might not know anything about Dept. Q?

For people who don’t know, it’s an adaptation of Department Q, the Scandinavian novels by Jussi Adler-Olson. They’re unbelievably popular. And the star of our show is Scott Frank, he’s been the best screenwriter for 30 years in Hollywood. Or one of, and it’s a short list. And now he’s one of the best directors. We all had the pleasure during lockdown of — I mean, I know we were a captive audience — but The Queen’s Gambit is special, and that’s him, that’s his mind, that’s his ability, that’s his direction, his authority. And he’s only getting more authoritative and more brilliant. He’s like the second coming of [American filmmaker] Sidney Lumet. He’s not letting you down. He’s cinematic, he’s intelligent, and he never, ever treats an audience anything other than being as intelligent as he is, right? So the story will unfurl for the viewing pleasure of an audience that he will not write down to you. He believes in them, and you will get a great story with spectacularly good acting. I apologize for myself, obviously, but everyone else is brilliant in it.

It’s a gripping story, it’s a puzzle. And he invites everyone to get in on that puzzle. Also, the great thing is, it doesn’t feel like it’s gonna be, “Hey, we want to be part of the zeitgeist, so we’re just gonna release one episode per week.” It’s like, “Hey, you want it? You got it. Have the lot.” It’s for your viewing pleasure. If you want to go through it because you love it, you can. And I love that. I hate having to wait a week.

You don’t like the weekly episode drops?

I mean, I don’t care what anyone does. But if I want to watch something, I want to watch it. You’ve got me hooked. Let me watch it all. [Otherwise] I might get angry and just go, “Well, sod that. I don’t want to see what happens then.” I’m like a spoilt child. [Laughs.]

No better platform for binge-watching content than Netflix. How did this set compare to other shows you’ve worked on? You felt they were a good partner in this?

I’ve worked with them on a couple of things now and I’m always amazed at how incredibly hands off they are. I stepped into the second season of The Crown, so I don’t know what the first season was like, but when I walked on the set, I was like, “This is great.” It’s not, like, seven people with a clipboard. It was just the director. And I’ve heard it’s a wonderful experience for lots of people. And obviously, for Scott, this is his third time working with them. He’s given them Godless, Gambit, so they’re pretty hands off. Which was lovely.

I read recently that you don’t like the idea of being famous, or at least it doesn’t sound like something you’d enjoy.

I’ve seen friends that have gone through it and it just seems like an awfully difficult thing to navigate. But, I don’t know, I love my job more than I ever have now. You go through the adolescent stage and I think my wife is like, “Oh maybe you’re about to finally grow up.” [Laughs.] I don’t know. I’m very aware of how fragile it is, you could lose it all in a day via a choice or just being knocked over by a car or something. But yeah, I would love to come back and do another season of this.

The whole experience was so wonderful. But it’s all about the company of actors. It was the most uncompetitive, beautiful environment too. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it kicked the proverbial out of us, cause it’s long-form TV. It’s like, bring some stamina, because you’re making four or five films back to back, effectively. But it was joyous and I felt like I’m getting better at having a position of responsibility, and how you can help.

Are you cautious, then, that you’re about to step into the lead role of what will be a huge Netflix show? Especially with Scott attached, off the back of The Queen’s Gambit.

I quite like the responsibility of it. If we get to go again, I think Scott will write something equally brilliant and if we get to come back to Edinburgh, I mean, it just ticks so many boxes of joy.

I don’t know how people will react to it. I’m on eggshells at the moment because I’ve been in things that I thought were good before and it’s like tumbleweeds [when it airs]. You go, “Oh, no… Misjudged that one.” So we shall see. I feel like this has a fresh take. It’s always going to be fresh to a certain point when you have a brand new cast of people who have never worked together. But Scott’s intelligence and degree of professionalism, across camera and making it cinematic and and also having just so many interesting characters — and a complete lack of sentimentality. He rips any of that out, he hates it. It’s great fun. You’ve got to do your homework, you’ve got to come prepared, but it’s just brilliant.

Did you read the original books?

No. We’re taking it out of Copenhagen and putting it into Edinburgh, which is the perfect city to make it English-speaking. Not just because it’s the judicial center of Scotland, but also with the mediaeval architecture and it’s quite small. It becomes a real character of our series.

Scott warned me off [reading the books] in a way, and that was so freeing, because I’ve done many adaptations of my career. And sometimes you get so attached to bits in the book and then they just don’t appear in it. We got to create a different past. So [Morck] is still a bit of a mystery to people, which is, again, why I want to come back.

This is a show that’s asking for a season two.

It’s begging for it.

And I have to ask about Downton Abbey 3, too, as I saw you won’t be returning as Henry Talbot for the film…

Well, I was filming [Dept. Q]. And for the scene they wanted to do, it was half a page. So there was never going to be too much in there, but I couldn’t do it. And actually, I said, you know what? Why can’t this be a really positive thing? Because I don’t know what they’re doing. They might kill [Henry]! I didn’t see the script. But it’s a wonderful opportunity — [Mary, Michelle Dockery’s character] is like this modern feminist icon and in a weird way, maybe she doesn’t need a fella. Maybe Downton’s enough or maybe some old suitor will come in. Now, it opens up the story to have something significant happen. Why have Henry come?

It would have been lovely to have done it because I adored the cast. To work with Allen Leach every day is to really have a very, very funny day. And Hugh [Bonneville] and obviously, Dockers and the rest of them. But I’ll tune in. I’d like to find out what happens.