Video: Ross Kemp chats to Notts TV’s Kate Chaplin
Ross Kemp paid Nottingham a visit to open a brand new store in Arnold to support his chosen outdoor equipment shop. In a one-on-one interview with the BAFTA award-winning journalist, Notts TV spoke to him about his recent travels, issues with filming within the UK and switching off, writes Jake Brigstock.
He’s the man who, in the year 2006, won both Best Actor at the British Soap Awards along with a BAFTA in the Best Factual Series category for his documentaries on gangs.
Ross Kemp has enjoyed success in a number of roles he has turned his hand to.
They range from his iconic Grant Mitchell character in Eastenders to earning critical acclaim for his factual series’ having taken him to some of the most war torn parts of the planet.
Recently, the actor, author and BAFTA award-winning investigative journalist visited Libya, one of the locations he travels to in his new series of Extreme World.
Two children were calling for their mother; she had drowned that night
Speaking about what he saw when he was out there, Ross said: “We are the first western journalists ever to go down to the south of Libya, down to Sabha, which is where the majority of migrants are coming in to Libya in order to get across the Mediterranean.
“I looked into the faces of a five-year-old and a three-year-old that are calling for their mother thinking she is still alive after she drowned that night.
“That is enough to stimulate anybody no matter where they are in the world to try and do something or push their MP or push their politicians into doing something immediately about those people who have been trapped there.”
Ross’s very latest trip was to the Philippines where Rodrigo Duterte is the current president of the country.
He said: “Duterte has said he wants to fill Manila Bay with as many drug users as he possibly can.
“He’s said some controversial things like he wants to kill as many drug dealers and users as Hitler killed Jews.
“He’s not a very nice man all round and he has basically promoted the killing of the people who are his supporters.”
It’s very difficult to shoot in the UK
According to Ross, it is easier to film abroad because there are not as many legal issues as there are in the UK.
He said: “It’s very difficult to shoot in the UK as there are so many legal restraints.
“We made a programme about child sexual exploitation, one about alcohol abuse and one about immigration all in the UK and it took longer to edit those than it did to edit six episodes of Extreme World just because of the legal ramifications.
“We are lucky we have so many rights in this country but it doesn’t make it easy when it comes to making a documentary!”
When he’s back home from shooting a documentary in a foreign country, Ross finds it hard to switch off because he must then relive some of what he has already seen.
He said: “When you come home, you edit the footage so you’re looking at it all over again and that sometimes can be a bit distressing, particularly when, for instance, children have been hurt.
“Quite a lot of what we see are things that are traumatic when they’re happening and it doesn’t really help to go and sit back and look at it over and over again in an edit.
“That’s our job though and that’s what we do and I think we’re good at it.”
