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The Irish Sun
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Divided over Saipan…again our writers debate footie film & whether Ireland needs reminding of sporting ‘civil war'
THE movie isn't even out yet, but it's already splitting opinion. A 76-second teaser trailer for the upcoming 5 Republic of Ireland captain Roy Keane walks past manager Mick McCarthy during squad training Credit: Sportsfile 5 Eanna Hardwicke has been cast as Roy Keane Credit: Wildcard 5 Mick McCarthy during a press conference to announce the departure from the squad of captain Roy Keane Credit: Sportsfile The trailer showcases the remote island in the Pacific Ocean that went down in Irish The film is described as 'the definitive account of one of the most fractious fallings-out in the history of Here, Associate Sports Editor Vincent Whelan and Senior Reporter Michael Doyle give their take on whether Ireland needed to be reminded about our sporting 'civil war'. FOR - VINCENT WHELAN 5 Vincent Whelan said that Saipan film brings a chance for fans to be part of footie history Credit: Collect image through journalist SORRY if this offends you, reader . . . but a lot of us weren't even alive in 2002. The 23-year gap between the real thing and it being committed to the big screen means most people under 30 have barely any recollection of To paraphrase Tommie Gorman's interview with We never got to witness the frenzied debates taking over current affairs We never got to argue around the water cooler about whether we were 'Team Roy' or 'Team Mick'. This summer's release will finally give us a chance to feel a part of the most infamous episode in Irish footballing history . . . and also a World Cup! Jason McAteer jokes only time he ever voted was in Saipan and reveals how many Ireland teammates wanted Roy Keane back Frankly, as a young(ish) Irish sports fanatic I'd be happy handing over the price of a cinema ticket to witness any kind of But on top of that desperation to have some experience of it, there are legitimate grounds for optimism around it actually turning out to be good. For starters, you've got Anyone who'd be dubious about a largely comic actor taking on a weighty role clearly hasn't seen him in the likes of Philomena or Stan & Ollie. It's a chance for fans to be part of footie history". Vincent Whelan Both parts earned him Bafta nominations in the Best Actor category. And while Eanna Hardwicke is not as much of a household name, the 28-year-old is a star on the rise. He's been in And he was named a Screen International Rising Star in the film magazine's first Irish edition. For all of those legitimate acting chops, perhaps most crucially of all is he's Irish and he's from So that immediately reduces the risk of a Christopher Walken in Wild Mountain Thyme or Julia Roberts in Michael Collins level of accent butchering. And finally, Saipan's production company, Fine Point Films, were behind the globally-acclaimed Kneecap movie. AGAINST - MICHAEL DOYLE 5 Michael Doyle said that the main issue with the Saipan trailer is the tone Credit: Marc O'Sullivan - The Sun Dublin AH Saipan — will we ever stop talking about it? It's been the subject of books, a musical, thousands of I have no doubt the man behind Alan Partridge will do a fantastic job playing Mick McCarthy. But my main issue with the trailer for Saipan is the tone. It looks like the makers are about to recreate the most divisive moment in the history of Irish sport as some kind of psychological thriller — when in reality it just couldn't have been more farcical. Now, if Coogan was to play Mick being portrayed by his much-loved alter-ego, then we'd all be dying to watch it. Arthur Matthews probably got it right with his spoof musical I Keano, which saw the Irish manager and It was hilarious, capturing the mood of the fiasco perfectly for everyone to just laugh at how bonkers it all really was. So how can a dark, serious tale of footie egos squaring off on a remote Pacific island just weeks before a World Cup do justice to what really went on? Impossible to get excited if you lived through it". Michael Doyle I've been working in the media long enough to remember the chaos in newsrooms when Keane walked out. And the satire it created weeks later. Everything from the skipper walking his dog Triggs in the glare of a hundred flashing bulbs to Tommie Gorman's iconic interview with the midfield icon to a 'tired and emotional' Eamon Dunphy ranting on Apres Match couldn't stop licking their lips. In hindsight, it was comedy and us journalists lapped it up. Maybe a new generation of football and movie fans will get excited by seeing this version of McCarthy v Keane. But for those of us who lived it, it's impossible to get excited by this new film — and the trailer is genuinely hard to watch. Maybe they should have let


Times
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Emily Mortimer on her son's White Lotus sex scene: ‘It was bizarre'
Emily Mortimer isn't sure why the producers of Suspect, Disney+'s new drama about the wrongful killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, thought of her for Cressida Dick, but she's glad they did. The actress, most recently seen as the kindly Mrs Brown in Paddington in Peru, knows she was an unlikely fit to play the former Metropolitan Police commissioner. 'But I was intrigued because I remember being in London when that happened, and I was familiar with Dick, the first woman and the first gay officer to lead the police force, so a trailblazer in lots of ways.' Mortimer, 53, is speaking from a spare room in her Brooklyn home, a Le Corbusier poster on the wall behind her, but on July 21, 2005, she was in London. That day, two weeks after the devastating 7/7 bombings, which killed 52 people and injured more than 770 others, four men tried to detonate bombs on the Underground and on a bus in a second attack. When they failed, the police launched a manhunt that ended with the shooting of de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian electrician, at Stockwell Tube station the next day. 'On the day the bombs didn't go off, I remember that feeling, 'Oh my God, it's happening again,'' says Mortimer. 'And then, oh no, wait, is this a failed attempt? It was something the whole country was feeling — that something awful could happen at any minute.' Dick oversaw the operation that led to de Menezes's death, but never admitted to any mistake. At the 2008 inquest, dramatised in Suspect, she told the jury it was 'extraordinarily, desperately unfortunate' that de Menezes looked very like one of the bombers, despite photographic evidence that he did not (they had different skin colours, for a start). The drama, written by Jeff Pope (Philomena, Stan & Ollie), painstakingly reconstructs the hunt for the real bombers and the fallout inside Scotland Yard. As Dick, Mortimer is a world away from her back catalogue of well-bred ladies (Bright Young Things, Mary Poppins Returns) and needy girlfriends (Lovely & Amazing, Match Point), yet they share a surprisingly similar background. Dick's parents were Oxford academics, and she studied at Oxford herself. Mortimer's father was the Rumpole of the Bailey author and criminal barrister John Mortimer, and she too went to Oxford. Was Dick, 64, a type she knew? • Jean Charles de Menezes: Police killing is turned into Disney+ TV series 'Not really, because I was arty-farty at university and that wasn't her bag. She was a criminologist, a scientist.' Mortimer did not meet Dick, but listened to her Desert Island Discs episode and read everything she could. 'The notion of service was very important to her. Her grandfather was in the RAF, and there was this sense of duty to your men and loyalty to the institution — because without that everything falls apart.' Before Dick resigned as the Met commissioner in 2022, in the wake of Sarah Everard's murder and a series of related scandals, this was the criticism levelled at her: that her loyalty to her officers outweighed her sense of public accountability. Getting Dick's inner conviction right was one thing, Mortimer says — 'I was very curious about playing somebody with that level of certainty, which I don't share'— whereas Dick's helmet of hair was another. 'There weren't wigs galore on set — I wasn't measured for one. But I remember looking at a photograph in the make-up trailer and saying, 'I think she might cut her hair herself'. So we hacked at it and that was the key.' Suspect is the sort of state-of-the-nation TV that used to be made by the terrestrial channels rather than streaming services such as Disney+. Does that matter? 'Mercifully there are still incredible people at the BBC despite it being difficult to raise the same money as Disney or Netflix. It's wonderful that these places are making shows like Suspect and Adolescence. That doesn't mean I don't think the BBC needs to be looked after.' Alongside Adolescence, the televisual event of 2025 has been The White Lotus, starring Mortimer's son, Sam Nivola, 21, as Lochlan Ratliff, the dreamy youngest child of a lorazepam addict and her bankrupt husband. In a crowded field, Lochlan scored the most memorable scene of season three: a queasy, druggy threesome with the girlfriend of a criminal kingpin and his own brother. It was Nivola's first sex scene — but, more important, how did his mother feel about watching her son pleasure Arnold Schwarzenegger's son Patrick in front of an audience of 16 million? • The 50 best TV shows on Disney+ to watch in April 2025 Mortimer laughs. 'It's so crazy, all of it. It wasn't particularly crazier than having my boy go off to Thailand for so long. Of course it was a bit bizarre, but being married to an actor [Alessandro Nivola], we've all had to watch each other do strange things. And I had been warned — although Sam said that the worst bit was the first ten minutes, but they kept flashing back. So I'd relaxed and then it wasn't true at all.' She was sitting on his bed with her sister Rosie and 15-year-old daughter, May (also an actress), when Sam got the call to say he had been cast. 'And the sweetest part is that Sam has a film production company with his best friend called Cold Worm Productions, after a silly thing from when he was a kid and we used to pretend to be cold worms' — Mortimer demonstrates her startled worm face — 'and the first thing he said when he put the phone down was, 'This is going to be huge for Cold Worm.'' She grins at his innocence. He has navigated sudden fame better than she ever could, Mortimer says. 'He just sort of owns it, which isn't thanks to either of us. I'm biased because I'm his mum, but he doesn't need any guidance.' Nivola also played the dreamy son in the adaptation of Don DeLillo's White Noise and, more recently, Netflix's glossy whodunnit The Perfect Couple with Nicole Kidman. Who is the more narcissistic screen mother: Kidman or The White Lotus's Parker Posey? 'Oh, he's had a lot of great actresses be his mum. Parker Posey was a bit more maternal.' Nepotism is not a dirty word in the Mortimer household: she cast her children and mother in the BBC's The Pursuit of Love (which she wrote and directed, earning a Bafta nomination for her performance as the Bolter, an aristocrat who keeps leaving her husbands) and in Doll & Em, the comedy series she wrote with her best friend, Dolly Wells. Partly it is because it's the most practical option, working with the people closest to hand; partly it is the way Mortimer grew up, in a busy bohemian family with half-siblings from her father's previous marriage (to the novelist Penelope Mortimer) and his affair with the actress Wendy Craig. She thinks of her father when she writes, she says, or tells a story: as a lawyer and author, he taught her to be open-minded, 'to avoid sanctimony at all costs'. He died in 2009, but she is very close to her mother, Penelope Gollop, whom she describes as 'the most rock'n'roll person I know. She's 79 and she's still up for it. She's got a punk rock spirit, a healthy dose of not giving a f***. I'm hoping some of it will rub off on me — I was always more square.' Gollop recently gave up smoking, after decades of being begged to do so by her daughters. 'We'd say, 'We don't want you to die, Mum.' And she'd say, 'I'd quite like to die, f*** off.' But she doesn't actually want to die, as it turns out.' Gollop once told a journalist what a relief it was that Emily was marrying Alessandro: her other boyfriends were mostly 'dreadful'. Was that fair? 'No! She had a real soft spot for Alessandro, which she has to this day. Rosie and I think she almost prefers her sons-in-law to us. My boyfriends were wonderful, but Alessandro was the best one for me — and clearly the best one for my mum.' • Emily Mortimer: There are very few things that are cool about getting older In her fifties, Mortimer thinks she is less typecast. She has played the love interest to Hugh Grant, Ewan McGregor, Alec Baldwin and more. But it's not that she always got the girlfriend scripts, she says, 'more that I was this on-the-back-foot person', diffident and happy on the margins. As she inherits more of her mother's punk rock spirit, she is being offered authority-figure roles such as Cressida Dick or Juliette Binoche's opiate-addicted frenemy in The New Look. 'I've given myself permission to go outside myself a bit more,' she says, before puncturing her bubble. 'I mean, it's not like I'm fighting offers off.' Would she ever move back to England? You can picture the Mortimer-Nivolas in a house full of children, grandchildren and friends, like the Mitfords or the sort of home she grew up in. 'For a long time I used to wonder, and now I think it doesn't work like that. Life takes funny turns and you can't predict it.' When they moved to Brooklyn in 2003, she would catch the train into the city to go to the theatre 'and I'd think, oh my God, am I going to end up one of these old ladies who sits in New York's theatres, watching plays every day? Now I think that would be really nice.' Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes is on Disney+ from April 30 What have you been enjoying on television recently? Let us know in the comments below


San Francisco Chronicle
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
'Suspect' on Disney+ digs for the truth around a fatal London police shooting
LONDON (AP) — It's hard to imagine what it's like to have the most traumatic event of your life reenacted as television drama. For one Brazilian family, it is cathartic. 'I want them to see the reality that my boy was innocent,' said 80-year-old Maria de Menezes, whose son was shot dead by London police in 2005 after being mistaken for a suicide bomber. The shooting remains a scar on the reputation of the Metropolitan Police, and an unhealed wound for the dead man's family. 'Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes,' which will be released April 30 on Disney+, dramatizes the killing of the 27-year-old electrician, which happened a day after failed bombing attempts on the London Underground. The botched attacks, in which the home-made explosives failed to detonate, came two weeks after suicide bombers attacked three London subway trains and a bus on July 7, killing 52 people. De Menezes, who lived in an apartment building that police believed was home to one of the on-the-run suspects, was on his way to work when he was shot seven times at close range by police who followed him onto a subway carriage. The two officers who shot him testified at an inquest that they believed de Menezes was one of the failed bombers. Missteps and misinformation Screenwriter Jeff Pope said a 'poorly planned and poorly executed' police operation was followed 'by obfuscation, by denial, by evasion.' 'And that has denied his family proper closure,' said Pope, whose previous forays into fact-based drama include Laurel and Hardy biopic 'Stan & Ollie' and Irish church-abuse story 'Philomena,' which garnered him an Academy Award nomination. The first two episodes of the four-part miniseries recreate the build-up to the shooting with agonizing suspense, showing how bad luck and police missteps led to tragedy at a time when the city was on edge and officers under intense pressure. The surveillance officer watching the building where de Menezes lived had stopped to urinate and didn't get a good look at him. The team of armed officers was too late to stop him as he made his way by bus to a subway station and boarded a train. 'There's so much horrendous chance involved,' Pope said. 'But it was the misinformation that really got me.' The police force initially told reporters de Menezes' bulky clothing and panicked manner had caused commanders to fear he was a suicide bomber, and that he ignored a shouted warning from officers before being shot. Those claims were contradicted by witnesses and rejected by an inquest jury. But false details lingered. 'Suspect' is, in part, an exploration of the long afterlife of false information. Like millions of people in Britain, Pope said he vividly remembers the 7/7 bombings and the shooting of de Menezes 15 days later. But he said that 'at the back of my mind, I had retained these details – that unfortunately he was wearing bulky clothing. He'd vaulted the barriers, he'd run down the escalator, and that somehow his behavior tragically had led to his death.' 'I then started to really dig into it … and what I discovered made me angry because it's not true,' he said. In Pope's telling, misinformation about the shooting spread not through an organized cover-up but through confusion and buck-passing, as police officers closed ranks to protect the force's reputation. No officers were charged over the killing, though the Metropolitan Police force was fined for endangering public safety. A family's long battle De Menezes' family waged a long legal battle for accountability that included suing the police in civil court. That case was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2009. In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights concluded that British authorities were correct not to charge any police officers. Both Cressida Dick, the officer in charge of the botched surveillance operation, and then-Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair were cleared of wrongdoing. Dick rose to become head of the force. Blair was later appointed to the House of Lords. The series comes not long after ITV's 'Mr. Bates vs The Post Office' and Netflix drama 'Adolescence,' two recent British docudramas that started conversations and sparked pressure for action on social ills – respectively, a miscarriage of justice that led to the prosecution hundreds of post office managers and the pernicious impact of social media on children. Actor Russell Tovey, who plays Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick, a senior officer who pressed the force to set the record straight, said 'Suspect' is 'a hard watch and it's disappointing watch,' because there is no big moment where justice is served. But he believes art can "change perceptions and hold people accountable.' 'A drama in your living room hits home quicker than any government rhetoric, quicker than any op-ed piece," Tovey said. "Drama changes the world.' Twenty years after his death, the show also restores the humanity of de Menezes, played by newcomer Edison Alcaide. He's not just a victim, but a rounded person, building a life in London and with a much-loved family back in Brazil. For that reason among others, de Menezes' family welcomes the series. 'I want to believe that from now on things will be different," Maria de Menezes said. 'That the people who doubt the truth, they will see it and believe it's real — that the boy was not guilty of anything, that the boy was innocent. "They killed an innocent boy.'
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Suspect' on Disney+ digs for the truth around a fatal London police shooting
LONDON (AP) — It's hard to imagine what it's like to have the most traumatic event of your life reenacted as television drama. For one Brazilian family, it is cathartic. 'I want them to see the reality that my boy was innocent,' said 80-year-old Maria de Menezes, whose son was shot dead by London police in 2005 after being mistaken for a suicide bomber. The shooting remains a scar on the reputation of the Metropolitan Police, and an unhealed wound for the dead man's family. 'Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes,' which will be released April 30 on Disney+, dramatizes the killing of the 27-year-old electrician, which happened a day after failed bombing attempts on the London Underground. The botched attacks, in which the home-made explosives failed to detonate, came two weeks after suicide bombers attacked three London subway trains and a bus on July 7, killing 52 people. De Menezes, who lived in an apartment building that police believed was home to one of the on-the-run suspects, was on his way to work when he was shot seven times at close range by police who followed him onto a subway carriage. The two officers who shot him testified at an inquest that they believed de Menezes was one of the failed bombers. Missteps and misinformation Screenwriter Jeff Pope said a 'poorly planned and poorly executed' police operation was followed 'by obfuscation, by denial, by evasion.' 'And that has denied his family proper closure,' said Pope, whose previous forays into fact-based drama include Laurel and Hardy biopic 'Stan & Ollie' and Irish church-abuse story 'Philomena,' which garnered him an Academy Award nomination. The first two episodes of the four-part miniseries recreate the build-up to the shooting with agonizing suspense, showing how bad luck and police missteps led to tragedy at a time when the city was on edge and officers under intense pressure. The surveillance officer watching the building where de Menezes lived had stopped to urinate and didn't get a good look at him. The team of armed officers was too late to stop him as he made his way by bus to a subway station and boarded a train. 'There's so much horrendous chance involved,' Pope said. 'But it was the misinformation that really got me.' The police force initially told reporters de Menezes' bulky clothing and panicked manner had caused commanders to fear he was a suicide bomber, and that he ignored a shouted warning from officers before being shot. Those claims were contradicted by witnesses and rejected by an inquest jury. But false details lingered. 'Suspect' is, in part, an exploration of the long afterlife of false information. Like millions of people in Britain, Pope said he vividly remembers the 7/7 bombings and the shooting of de Menezes 15 days later. But he said that 'at the back of my mind, I had retained these details – that unfortunately he was wearing bulky clothing. He'd vaulted the barriers, he'd run down the escalator, and that somehow his behavior tragically had led to his death.' 'I then started to really dig into it … and what I discovered made me angry because it's not true,' he said. In Pope's telling, misinformation about the shooting spread not through an organized cover-up but through confusion and buck-passing, as police officers closed ranks to protect the force's reputation. No officers were charged over the killing, though the Metropolitan Police force was fined for endangering public safety. A family's long battle De Menezes' family waged a long legal battle for accountability that included suing the police in civil court. That case was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2009. In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights concluded that British authorities were correct not to charge any police officers. Both Cressida Dick, the officer in charge of the botched surveillance operation, and then-Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair were cleared of wrongdoing. Dick rose to become head of the force. Blair was later appointed to the House of Lords. The series comes not long after ITV's 'Mr. Bates vs The Post Office' and Netflix drama 'Adolescence,' two recent British docudramas that started conversations and sparked pressure for action on social ills – respectively, a miscarriage of justice that led to the prosecution hundreds of post office managers and the pernicious impact of social media on children. Actor Russell Tovey, who plays Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick, a senior officer who pressed the force to set the record straight, said 'Suspect' is 'a hard watch and it's disappointing watch,' because there is no big moment where justice is served. But he believes art can "change perceptions and hold people accountable.' 'A drama in your living room hits home quicker than any government rhetoric, quicker than any op-ed piece," Tovey said. "Drama changes the world.' Twenty years after his death, the show also restores the humanity of de Menezes, played by newcomer Edison Alcaide. He's not just a victim, but a rounded person, building a life in London and with a much-loved family back in Brazil. For that reason among others, de Menezes' family welcomes the series. 'I want to believe that from now on things will be different," Maria de Menezes said. 'That the people who doubt the truth, they will see it and believe it's real — that the boy was not guilty of anything, that the boy was innocent. "They killed an innocent boy.'


Washington Post
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
'Suspect' on Disney+ digs for the truth around a fatal London police shooting
LONDON — It's hard to imagine what it's like to have the most traumatic event of your life reenacted as television drama. For one Brazilian family, it is cathartic. 'I want them to see the reality that my boy was innocent,' said 80-year-old Maria de Menezes, whose son was shot dead by London police in 2005 after being mistaken for a suicide bomber. The shooting remains a scar on the reputation of the Metropolitan Police, and an unhealed wound for the dead man's family. 'Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes,' which will be released April 30 on Disney+, dramatizes the killing of the 27-year-old electrician, which happened a day after failed bombing attempts on the London Underground. The botched attacks, in which the home-made explosives failed to detonate, came two weeks after suicide bombers attacked three London subway trains and a bus on July 7, killing 52 people. De Menezes, who lived in an apartment building that police believed was home to one of the on-the-run suspects, was on his way to work when he was shot seven times at close range by police who followed him onto a subway carriage. The two officers who shot him testified at an inquest that they believed de Menezes was one of the failed bombers. Screenwriter Jeff Pope said a 'poorly planned and poorly executed' police operation was followed 'by obfuscation, by denial, by evasion.' 'And that has denied his family proper closure,' said Pope, whose previous forays into fact-based drama include Laurel and Hardy biopic 'Stan & Ollie' and Irish church-abuse story 'Philomena,' which garnered him an Academy Award nomination. The first two episodes of the four-part miniseries recreate the build-up to the shooting with agonizing suspense, showing how bad luck and police missteps led to tragedy at a time when the city was on edge and officers under intense pressure. The surveillance officer watching the building where de Menezes lived had stopped to urinate and didn't get a good look at him. The team of armed officers was too late to stop him as he made his way by bus to a subway station and boarded a train. 'There's so much horrendous chance involved,' Pope said. 'But it was the misinformation that really got me.' The police force initially told reporters de Menezes' bulky clothing and panicked manner had caused commanders to fear he was a suicide bomber, and that he ignored a shouted warning from officers before being shot. Those claims were contradicted by witnesses and rejected by an inquest jury. But false details lingered. 'Suspect' is, in part, an exploration of the long afterlife of false information. Like millions of people in Britain, Pope said he vividly remembers the 7/7 bombings and the shooting of de Menezes 15 days later. But he said that 'at the back of my mind, I had retained these details – that unfortunately he was wearing bulky clothing. He'd vaulted the barriers, he'd run down the escalator, and that somehow his behavior tragically had led to his death.' 'I then started to really dig into it … and what I discovered made me angry because it's not true,' he said. In Pope's telling, misinformation about the shooting spread not through an organized cover-up but through confusion and buck-passing, as police officers closed ranks to protect the force's reputation. No officers were charged over the killing, though the Metropolitan Police force was fined for endangering public safety. De Menezes' family waged a long legal battle for accountability that included suing the police in civil court. That case was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2009. In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights concluded that British authorities were correct not to charge any police officers. Both Cressida Dick , the officer in charge of the botched surveillance operation, and then-Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair were cleared of wrongdoing. Dick rose to become head of the force. Blair was later appointed to the House of Lords. The series comes not long after ITV's 'Mr. Bates vs The Post Office' and Netflix drama 'Adolescence,' two recent British docudramas that started conversations and sparked pressure for action on social ills – respectively, a miscarriage of justice that led to the prosecution hundreds of post office managers and the pernicious impact of social media on children. Actor Russell Tovey , who plays Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick, a senior officer who pressed the force to set the record straight, said 'Suspect' is 'a hard watch and it's disappointing watch,' because there is no big moment where justice is served. But he believes art can 'change perceptions and hold people accountable.' 'A drama in your living room hits home quicker than any government rhetoric, quicker than any op-ed piece,' Tovey said. 'Drama changes the world.' Twenty years after his death, the show also restores the humanity of de Menezes, played by newcomer Edison Alcaide. He's not just a victim, but a rounded person, building a life in London and with a much-loved family back in Brazil. For that reason among others, de Menezes' family welcomes the series. 'I want to believe that from now on things will be different,' Maria de Menezes said. 'That the people who doubt the truth, they will see it and believe it's real — that the boy was not guilty of anything, that the boy was innocent. 'They killed an innocent boy.'