{"id":489531,"date":"2026-06-08T20:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T20:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/489531\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T20:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T20:31:10","slug":"how-deep-cover-went-from-dead-script-to-emmy-hopeful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/489531\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018Deep Cover\u2019 Went From Dead Script to Emmy Hopeful"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt has been 16 years since writers Colin Trevorrow<\/a> and longtime collaborator Derek Connolly wrote the action comedy Deep Cover<\/a>. Nearly two decades later, it\u2019s now in the running for an Emmy nomination for outstanding television movie.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDeep Cover was initially set in America,\u201d explains Trevorrow of the Amazon Prime Video flick that takes place in London. \u201cWe were about to give up on it. We both went on and did other things. Many years later, I asked our producer, Walter F. Parkes, if I could bring it over to the U.K., where I have lived for almost 10 years.\u201d Once he got the green light, British writers Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen came on board to \u201crebuild it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDeep Cover sees Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom and Nick Mohammed play a trio of improv actors recruited by the police to infiltrate a gang in London\u2019s criminal underworld. However, things get out of control pretty fast. The film\u2019s supporting cast boasts Paddy Considine (MobLand, House of the Dragon), Ian McShane (John Wick, Deadwood) and Sean Bean (Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings). That second tier of talent, more commonly known for gritty, dramatic performances, brings a gravitas to Deep Cover.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDerek and I wanted this structure to be able to hold up as a cop thriller on its own if it wasn\u2019t a comedy, so bringing in people who were going to play characters who took themselves seriously was essential,\u201d says Trevorrow, who also produced the film. \u201cFor Ian, Paddy and Sean to come in and do a version of what we\u2019ve seen them do before [in previous projects] \u2014 in this heightened space, that creates stakes for our three comedic characters that feel completely real. I do feel like they\u2019re going to die at certain points.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHoward, with whom the filmmaker worked on Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Dominion, headlines, but she only came on board as shooting was about to start. It was her first time doing a comedy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe was scared by it, and I think when she gets scared as an actor, that\u2019s exciting,\u201d says Trevorrow. \u201cShe was coming out to a relatively low-budget movie in East London, shot mostly on the streets, but she threw herself into it. I was very proud of her as a friend for having the bravery to put herself out there like that,\u201d he adds, likening the dynamic of Howard being the only American in the all-British cast to Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill.<\/p>\n

\n\tBloom\u2019s character, an actor who takes himself very seriously, was something the real actor wanted to have fun with.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was ready to take the piss, as is the British expression,\u201d Trevorrow says with a laugh. \u201cAt the time we were talking about this, there were a lot of articles about method actors, and what they would do, so we took that and went to the next level. He really nailed it. I love those surprises where it feels like it\u2019s a new actor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tHoward (pictured again with Mohammed and Bloom) had never done a comedy before, says writer-producer Colin Trevorrow. \u201cShe was scared by it, and I think \u2026 that\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPeter Mountain\/Amazon Prime<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Ashenden and Owen were reworking the original script, Mohammed\u2019s character evolved with the Ted Lasso actor in mind, given his friendship with the pair.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is a character who is probably closest to Nick as a person than other things that he has played,\u201d Trevorrow shares, highlighting the subtlety and relatability of his performance. \u201cHe\u2019s the outsider who comes into comedy and is really just looking for friends. It\u2019s such a lovely approach and angle. If anyone reading this interview wants to do a romantic comedy with Nick Mohammed, I\u2019m in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTrevorrow continues, \u201cWe\u2019re really just trying to get them to consider Nick for James Bond, so we\u2019re finding ways to get on the inside at Amazon. He\u2019s right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen it came to Deep Cover\u2018s look, Trevorrow used the unpredictability of London\u2019s weather to his advantage, aping the work of the iconic filmmaker who helmed Top Gun, Man on Fire and True Romance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe didn\u2019t shoot it like a comedy,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWe wanted it to look like a Tony Scott movie from the mid-\u201980s. When you shoot a film that way, it suggests a different set of stakes. There\u2019s a darkness that runs within it. The good thing about this is that England doesn\u2019t necessarily have the best sunlight available on the Earth, and if you\u2019re making a moody crime thriller, it\u2019s perfect. It was always raining, it was always gray, and we just got to lean into that and the colors and the desaturation that happen naturally in a sun-free film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUp until Deep Cover, Trevorrow\u2019s experience of filming in the U.K. was limited to his two Jurassic World movies, where he was \u201cpretty contained\u201d on Pinewood Studios\u2019 soundstages. While Tom Kingsley was on directorial duty for the Emmy hopeful action comedy, the writer-producer relished the opportunity to make a movie set in the place where it was shot.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn a time when we\u2019ve been shooting a lot of films in a completely different part of the Earth than they\u2019re supposed to take place in, you rarely have a sense of place and real environment in the film,\u201d he muses. \u201cNot since Safety Not Guaranteed and the first Jurassic movie in Hawaii have I been able to be where the film was set.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough Deep Cover premiered on Prime Video, Trevorrow wants viewers to remember that it is an independent film with a modest budget \u2014 not a studio movie.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe path for independent film does not lead through the theaters as much as it used to, and I\u2019m very grateful to Amazon and the other streamers for continuing to support these films,\u201d Trevorrow says. \u201cThis one may not play like an indie because we intended for it to be able to compete with the other big-budget streaming movies that they make, but it costs about a 15th of what one of those movies costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tConcludes Trevorrow, \u201cI got a WGA award for this. I never thought I\u2019d win one of those in my life. I\u2019m deeply honored by it. My wife put it outside the bedroom door so I can see it every morning to boost my self-esteem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been 16 years since writers Colin Trevorrow and longtime collaborator Derek Connolly wrote the action comedy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6971,321,210267,210268,12432,204898,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-489531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-awards","tag-celebrities","tag-colin-trevorrow","tag-deep-cover","tag-emmy-awards","tag-emmys-2026","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}