Programme Information

United in war

Occupation

Day and time to be confirmed BBC TWO

• Programme copy

Basra, southern Iraq, 2003. Crammed inside a Warrior armed troop carrier, bullets and RPGs exploding around them, three British soldiers head into a hostile part of the city – and a world descending into chaos.

When they emerge from their vehicle, their lives spiral out of control. Their fates – and the destiny of Iraq itself – become inextricably linked. United in war, the three men – and their friendships – are torn apart during the peace that follows.

Occupation is a searingly powerful drama, written by Peter Bowker and starring James Nesbitt as Mike, Stephen Graham as Danny and Warren Brown as Hibbs, spanning the five years following the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It follows the lives of three soldiers and friends, first during the battle for Basra, then as they struggle to adapt to life back home and, finally, as very different forces draw them back to Iraq.

The BBC's first major drama set against the backdrop of the Iraq war, Occupation is an unforgettable journey into the heart of the darkness that is conflict and its chaotic aftermath.

Occupation is broadcast in the wake of the British military's recent withdrawal from Basra and explores the impact war has on the lives of those who fight and what happens when cultures collide – not just in war, but also in peace.

Here, Programme Information speaks to James Nesbitt and Stephen Graham about their roles in the powerful drama.

James Nesbitt plays Mike

James Nesbitt admits he felt anxious about playing the role of a British soldier for the first time in his long and varied career.

"This is the first soldier I've played since I was starting out as a young extra aged 16 or 17, and it was quite daunting," he explains. "I said to the director, Nick Murphy, early on: 'I am worried about being believable'. I just couldn't picture myself. I kept telling him to keep an eye on my military bearing and my authority."

Once the production got under way, however, his worries quickly disappeared. "A couple of things happened. First Nick said to me: 'Don't worry too much; soldiers are human beings, too'. It was really helpful, I realised I was thinking about myself as an actor rather than an actor playing a soldier," he says.

More significantly, Nesbitt found that the moment he put on the uniform and joined Occupation's fictional unit, with colleagues Stephen Graham and Warren Brown, he began to behave as a soldier might.

"You put on the uniform, trust yourself and the character and it begins to fall into place," he says. Many of the military scenes were filmed early on in the production. Nesbitt and his co-stars, Brown and Graham, found themselves forming a tight-knit unit. "We tried to keep in character. So they were very much my team, my unit, my responsibility."

Nesbitt jumped at the chance of playing Mike, a military veteran approaching the end of his career in the Army who finds his life unravelling when he returns from Iraq. "The one thing that the certain amount of success I've had has afforded me is the ability to be choosy about scripts. I thought Occupation was something I could be challenged by and the writing by Peter Bowker was exceptional," he says.

He was also drawn to the prospect of appearing in what is the BBC's first major drama on the Iraq war. "I thought it was exciting to be involved in something which, while not necessarily ignored, has been hard for people to know what to do about, as a subject," he explains. Mike, a long-serving soldier drawing to the end of his military career, is transformed by his experience in Iraq. So too are his colleagues, Danny and Hibbs.

"He has served in the Balkans and Northern Ireland, he is in his late thirties, he's been around a long time and he's coming towards the end of his time," he explains.

"In the opening scene, something happens to all of them and, from that moment, we plot their various paths and how they are interwoven, how that can separate them, how it can break them as a unit, how they find love, lose love and how their worlds are shattered."

He admits he found the process of playing a military man, exposed to the horrors and chaos of war, an eye-opening experience: "One of the difficult things for us was to try and imagine what it must be like. It's impossible for us to imagine the things they see, the things they do, the impact it has on their lives when they leave their friends and families. The duality of their existence is extremely stark," he says.

"I wasn't surprised to discover that the marriage breakdown rate among soldiers who return from Iraq is something like 70 per cent. Who do you share those extreme experiences with and how could your partner ever understand? In a way, you need to get away from your Army colleagues, but who do you share those inner demons with if not them? Who lives those horrors with you?"

Nesbitt is honest about his attitude to the Iraq war. "I marched against it," he says. Occupation hasn't changed his opinion of the conflict. What it has changed, however, is his feelings towards the men – and women – who wear the military green.

"What has been extraordinary to me and all those involved in Occupation, irrespective of our own political persuasions or ideologies, is that we have come away from it with an enormous amount of respect for what they do," he explains. "The discipline and the commitment of these men doing this job is quite extraordinary and quite moving."

Stephen Graham plays Danny

Stephen Graham admits he had problems reading Peter Bowker's screenplay, but not, he hastens to add, because he wasn't gripped by its drama.

"I couldn't get my hands on it," he explains. "My wife, Hannah, is an actor as well. When I was reading it she was grabbing it off me all the time. I'd go off and make a cup of tea and she'd be there with her head buried in it saying: 'You've got to get that part'. I'd say: 'Give it back,' and we'd end up fighting over it!"

When he finally got his hands on the screenplay, he knew immediately that he had to take on the role of Danny, the seemingly happy-go-lucky soldier who is drawn back to Iraq as a private contractor working with an ex-American marine.

"I knew I wanted to be part of it from the moment I read it, because the writing was so beautiful and because of what it was saying. The characters are so well developed," he says.

Danny begins the story as part of a tight-knit group. The events that begin the story transform him – and his relationship with his fellow soldiers, Mike and Hibbsy. "This one situation changes the lives of these three men for ever," he says.

Stephen's character, Danny, returns to Iraq to work with an American GI he encounters during the invasion of Basra in 2003. Together, they form a security operation that quickly finds itself bidding for – and winning – multi-million-dollar contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq. As Danny is drawn deeper into the murky and mercenary world, he loses his moral compass.

"It's political without shoving it down your throat," he says. "It doesn't really judge. It offers you these people and says look, there are faults in everyone and there is goodness in everyone. It's not preachy; it allows you to make up your own mind."

Stephen is one of the most in-demand actors in the country at the moment. His tour de force in the acclaimed movie This Is England has landed him a raft of roles, both here in the UK and in America, where he has just completed a movie, Public Enemies, with Johnny Depp, in which he plays the Thirties gangster Baby Face Nelson.

It was while he was finishing a home-grown production in the weeks before joining the cast of Occupation that he met the ex-soldier who gave him the most important guidance on playing Danny.

"I was lucky – on my last production there was a very unassuming third assistant director, a guy called Chris, a lovely Welsh fella, who was in the Special Forces. You'd have never thought it," he explains. "He looked more like a hippy than a soldier."

Talking to someone who had been through an experience very much like Danny's, Graham began to truly understand his character and what drove him to return to Iraq.

"He told me the thing that kept him out there was the fact that he didn't have any wife and kids. He had nothing. He was just there for the camaraderie and the buzz and the thrill. He'd been doing it since he was 18 so he didn't have any other routine," he says. "He couldn't cope when he was back here at home, seeing his mum and dad and his friends. They didn't quite understand what he'd been going through. He was in the Falklands and then in Kuwait for Desert Storm. It gave me a real understanding of Danny and what made him tick."

Danny's wise-cracking humour at the beginning of the drama also rang true. "Their humour is quite dark. I love that. You need that otherwise everyone is going to be sitting there feeling very depressed. You have to find a way of pulling people out of it. That's what Danny is like. But then he self-destructs," he says.

Like his colleagues James Nesbitt and Warren Brown, Stephen came away from the production filled with admiration for the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces.

"We had a military adviser helping us with some of the scenes. We did a few little exercises. He said there are no accidents, only mistakes," he says. "What I've really understood about it is that you are so dependant on other people watching your back. When it comes down to the bare bones of it, it's your life and you are placing that life in the hands of someone else."