Smoke star Taron Egerton didn't know "disturbing" true story prior to show

Egerton stars as Dave, an arson investigator who joins forces with a detective, Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett), to finally try and catch the two serial arsonists he’s been chasing for months.

However, prior to shooting the series, Egerton has revealed that he was not familiar with the "disturbing" true story of the most prolific arsonist in America that Dennis Lehane created this series around.

"No, I hadn’t," he told RadioTimes.com when asked if he had listened to Firebug. "I listened to the podcast when the show first came about and the idea was first raised.

"There’s so much about it that I found - sure, it's disturbing - but it's just very difficult to wrap your head around as well, because his behaviour was so odd in such a multitude of different ways.

"It struck me as being a real challenge to try and pull all of those together into something that felt like a cohesive character."

He added: "I think that's really true of the show. It's a real juggle, sort of trying to figure out who Dave is and who the other characters in the show are as well, because no one is very easily squeezed into a box."

Yet, Egerton was on board from the beginning; keen to collaborate with his Blackbird showrunner, Lehane, and explore this "fascinating" character who is fuelled by a misguided hero complex.

"I was actually pretty sure I was gonna do it before I read the script because [Dennis and I] started talking about it when we were still shooting Blackbird," the actor explained, "so it's been a long time in the works. But when he did finally send me the first couple of scripts, god, I was so excited."

The prospect of playing Dave intrigued Egerton as it wasn’t like any role he’d played before, as he has so many conflicting sides to his identity.

"It's a fascinating role," he continued, "he's so unlike anything that I've ever been asked to play before, and actually, in a lot of ways, really unlike anything that I've seen on TV before."

"He’s complicated in a number of different ways," Egerton explained. "He's not split personality, but he has somehow compartmentalised who he is in a way that's really strange, and if you have an insight into what's going on behind closed doors, it's really quite disturbing.

"Dave is somebody who would style himself as a hero and as just a regular Joe who's trying to save the day.

"On the surface of things, that doesn't seem that unnerving, but anyone in real life who would describe themself as a hero is probably someone I'd think was a little bit weird. And Dave is definitely more than a little bit weird."

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Egerton teased that as the series progresses, Dave develops more clarity about his identity and purpose, but has warned it’s an uncomfortable journey, at times, to witness.

"Dave has no idea who he is," he continued. "He has no conception of how he fits into the world or any sense of the truth of who he is, but he's gonna have some sense of it by the end of this season. I'm really hopeful that people enjoy getting to know Dave, although it won't be comfortable."

The first two episodes of Smoke will be available to stream on 27th June on Apple TV+, followed by one episode a week released every Friday – sign up to Apple TV+ now.

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