Serena Manteghi on The Diplomat: ‘There are hard days at work as an actor, and none of them were on this’

The Diplomat is Alibi’s big new crime drama, a six-part series set in the British consulate in Barcelona and following the day-to-day lives of the diplomats who step in to help tourists who get in trouble abroad. Serena Manteghi plays Alba Ortiz, the local appointment who works closely with Sophie Rundle’s Laura Simmons.

In the first half of a two-part interview, Manteghi joined Alex Moreland to discuss what drew her to The Diplomat in the first place, explain what makes the series different from other crime dramas, and reveal what it was like filming in Barcelona. Manteghi also spoke about some of her early creative influences – from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet to Empire Records – and explained the differences between acting on stage and acting for the screen.

So, first of all: how did you get involved with The Diplomat? What was it that drew you to the show in the first place, what was the audition process like – what was the appeal of being involved?

It just always seemed like it... I think certain scripts are kind of lifted off the page, which sounds like a very pretentious actor thing to say. But you just know certain characters immediately, it really clicks, and that was definitely the case with Alba. As soon as I read the script, I was like, “Oh, my God. I absolutely know this girl. She’s me.” Yeah, she’s really well written, so it was really easy to embody her; you can get a sense of who she is, as with all the characters.

We were sent a few scenes, but it felt really strong. Like you can really imagine something just from a tiny snippet. I remember I had to do a tape for it, and me and my mum cracking up because Alba’s really funny. Shoutout to my mum, who always helps with my self-tapes and helps me get the part.

The series is about – and you’ll be impressed that I picked up on this – a diplomat.

Where did you get that from? My God.

I took a lot of notes, I watched very closely.

That’s a searing insight.

I try my best. How do you think the consulate setting makes it distinct from other crime dramas? Do you even think it’s accurate to call it a crime drama, actually?

Yeah, it’s sort of... I mean, it is and it isn’t. It is in that there is a crime or an incident in each episode, and then a massive overarching, more traditional crime drama – an overarching whole series narrative arc, which is a whodunnit/spy thriller intrigue on an epic, international scale.

But I think it’s different because… Obviously, in a police drama, those characters are warm to their victims, people who have been through tragedy or anything – but I think with the consulate it’s more about caretaking and looking after a person who is really adrift. It’s scary to be in a place you don’t know where you don’t speak the language, so the consulate acts as a port in the storm – I think it allows our characters like Laura, Alba, and Dylan to really take care of people, and you get a bit more invested in the human story behind each character that pops up each week. It’s not just solving a case or ticking some boxes, you really feel the responsibility.

Also, you just get such a vast range of issues. That’s what’s so fascinating about a consulate – I don’t know how this hasn’t been used as a premise before, because it’s so fertile. It’s everything from lost passports to missing children to revenge-porn cases to blackmail. The scope is vast.

Yeah, it feels like a show that could run and run. You mentioned the international scale of the show – what was it like filming in Barcelona?

Oh my goodness. I mean, there are hard days at work as an actor, and none of them were on this. Even on long days, the sheen didn’t wear off: it was like, wow, we are in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and the sun is shining and the food is amazing, and the culture is so friendly and vibrant. Yeah, I just loved it. I mean, not often do you get [to do something like this] – it’s a lifelong dream to be in a city as beautiful and as rich as Barcelona. To move somewhere and live there for four months, let alone get paid for it and be doing a dream job? Yeah, it was definitely a halcyon time. One I will never forget.

Obviously, it’s an ensemble drama, between you and Sophie and Dylan and so on – how did you all approach that? What was your working relationship like?

Oh, it was an absolute dream. It’s really well cast by our incredible casting director. We really are those characters, so it really clicked, it was really natural. We just got on very, very quickly which again, I think, is just down to good casting and knowing how our personalities would fit together – because you need to fit together on screen, but especially when you’re moving somewhere else for four months and you’re working together so intensely.

A lot of the friendship you see onscreen between Laura and Alba is absolutely near to the friendship between Sophie and I – I really look up to her and think she’s incredible. I mean, that said, Sophie is a lot more playful and fun than Laura is. Laura is quite serious, but Sophie is a total clown. I think that’s probably what bonded us actually. The three of us are all a little bit naughty and playful.

I was at the screening in Battersea last month and you all seemed to be having a lot of fun together.

Yeah, and it was so lovely to see everyone again. I mean, we actually all have stayed in touch at least, but we’re all spread across the country – the continent, because Philipp’s [Boos, who plays Fabian] in Berlin, and Laia [Costa, who plays Mariana] is in Spain – so it was really, really lovely to be reunited.

The Diplomat is one of your first big TV roles – how does that compare to your work on stage and on radio?

It’s a funny thing; I think any actor who does a lot of theatre and a lot of screen acting will tell you they’re almost different jobs entirely. It’s very strange. I’d imagine it’s the same as being a writer – you could be a journalist or you could be a fantasy novelist, but they are such different jobs? The form is different, even though the bare bones of what we’re doing is the same.

Maybe this doesn’t apply then, but do you have a preference at all?

Oh, I couldn’t possibly say. No, genuinely, I couldn’t say because they’re so different that they each have their own difficulties and rewards. The scale of television is so amazing. You get to be in all these different incredible locations, and the sets are dressed and designed so beautifully so that they are as real as possible. Also, the scale of story that you get to inhabit. I mean, I get to spend weeks with Alba, across the whole series, whereas usually a play – even if it takes place across a few hundred years – you’re still only spending two hours with that character in front of the audience.

But theatre was my first love, and there’s something so instinctually satisfying about it. I just love it so much, and there’s nothing quite like that feeling when the lights go up and it’s just you and the audience and you get to tell a story. There’s something very pure about it, whereas TV is like this massive collage of loads of different people’s talents, and you’re kind of a small part of that – but that’s also really joyful, to create something together with a big team, on a big scale.

Building on what you were saying there about theatre being your first love – what would you say are your big influences as an actor?

It’s funny because I’ve just been talking about theatre being my first love but actually… I was always obsessed with the VCR. My parents would take us to car boot sales on the weekends, cash-strapped young parents that they were, and we would be able to get a VHS, and that carried on into my teen years as well. I was like an absolute fiend in our local video store, they knew my name. “Oh, here she comes again.” Literally, I spent the whole summer holidays indoors just watching movies. I suppose movies and television were my first gateway drug, but then it was at school, and then at uni really, that I started getting a taste for it.

When you think back to those VHS tapes, are there any films – or, even more specifically, particular performances – that have really stayed with you since?

Oh my God, yeah. One of the most formative things – I was weirdly talking about this the other day with someone – is I think Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. I remember seeing that, and – you know when you hear real music [for the first time] instead of kids’ pop music or whatever? When you suddenly hear a song that you’re like, “Oh, this is music”?

It was a bit like that. Like, I loved Disney, and we had loads of fairy tales and stuff on VHS, but I think watching that… I remember as well, my older sister was having a sleepover and my parents rented it for them, and I woke up and crept down really quietly and hid by the door and watched it, peeking round so they wouldn’t find me. I remember seeing that and going, "Oh my God. What is this?" It was something else entirely, and I loved it. I loved the epic scale of it. I loved the intensity of the drama and the emotions. I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in that film.

I loved Empire Records as well, which is a weird thing for a 12-year-old from North London to like, and I really loved Bernardo Bertolucci as well. High drama! I don’t know how – coming from where I come from, there’s no artists in my family, we didn’t go to the theatre growing up or anything like that – how I ended up loving Shakespeare. I think that might be because I’m half-Iranian. Iranians are very passionate – they’re very poetic, romantic people. A common way to say I love you in Iran is to say “you can have my liver,” because that’s where they store intense emotions in ancient times. I think [that’s why I like Shakespeare], the epic scale of the emotions being portrayed.

The Diplomat begins on Alibi at 9pm on Tuesday 28 February, with new episodes airing weekly. Check back soon for the second half of this interview, where Serena Manteghi teases the future of The Diplomat, shares her television moments of the year so far, and explains once and for all why Ophelia isn’t mad.