Winter on ITV: Richard Armitage Interview

Winter is the brand new drama starring Richard Armitage, starting 9pm 30 September 2026 on ITV1 and ITVX.

Set against the atmospheric backdrop of Bristol Winter follows brilliant forensic pathologist Dr Ethan Winter as he works alongside DI Lauren Bell and DS Ellis Daldry. Together the team need to crack a series of twisted and compelling murder cases.  With his unflinching eye for detail and deep knowledge of the human body, Winter sees what others miss, revealing the secrets the dead leave behind.

But beneath the charm, wealth and cool exterior, Winter is a man tormented by the violent death ten years ago of someone close to him. The case was closed, a man put behind bars.  But when a recent suicide arrives in the lab bearing a chilling clue that echoes the earlier death, Winter is shaken to the core.

Gradually as his conviction grows that the wrong man is in prison and the killer must still be at large, Winter begins to investigate. Despite her doubts and instincts to keep her distance Bell is reluctantly drawn into a case that threatens to unravel everything the pair thought they knew.

RICHARD ARMITAGE (DR ETHAN WINTER and Executive Producer)

What captured your imagination the most about David Allison and Mark Greig’s scripts that made you want to take on the role of Dr Ethan Winter?  

I’ve never played anyone from the world of forensics before. My friend is a defence lawyer and works in that field. She’s secretive about her job and I’ve always probed her to tell me more as I’m fascinated. So that aspect interested me, as well as the fact that Winter communes with the murder victims. The way that he talks to the dead and uses their bodies as a map to find out how they died is so interesting. There were so many things about this character that I loved. I was tempted to watch the French drama which inspired Winter, but I didn’t want to be influenced by someone else, so I left it alone.  

Were you able to use your friend as part of your source research?

Sadly not. I read a few biographies on [retired forensic pathologist] Dr Richard Shepherd which explain how he compartmentalises going home to his family after dealing with terrible trauma in the lab. He gets into the spiritual side, which not many scientists do. And we visited our on-set consultant’s lab, although we didn’t observe an actual autopsy. That’s somebody’s loved one. It’s sensitive, delicate and there’s a sense of respect. You don’t want some actor probing around in their body’s final moments. I learned a lot there and from watching online postmortems. They’re done on living people, so they’re not cut into, but they describe everything. Winter says in the show that he wants to give the dead some peace and mend souls because they’ve been torn apart. I was told at the lab that they always try to give a body back to their loved ones in a better state than when they come in, and I took that with me into Winter’s mindset.

You’ve played the leading character many times before, but is there added pressure as the titular role of a show?

I try to carry the weight of that, because you know you’re responsible for the show’s tone. You hope your character will be someone audiences can hook into, but I’ve also learned that it’s not a solo act. So, I focused on the relationships with his team, and particularly the relationship with Bell, because that’s what brings us back to the story.

How would you describe Dr Ethan Winter and where do we find him when the drama begins?

He’s a scientist who’s brilliant at his job, which is a job that challenges him. When we first meet him, he’s in his climbing gear, standing on the edge of a cliff, somewhere between life and death. He’s in a state of loneliness coupled with physical ambition and that stems from a tragedy in his past. He has a spiritual side and a growing ability to commune with his patients, which is becoming more prevalent in his work. It’s odd for a scientist to talk to a cadaver, believing they can hear you, but Winter believes there’s this other side opening up to him. He has a sort of sixth sense, an extraordinary sense of smell and a unique ability to connect the dots. There’s also a darker side to him that sees him bend the rules for his own personal exploration.

What’s his relationship like with DS Ellis Daldry?

They’re old friends. You don’t choose who you work with, but they become like family. Winter sees Daldry as very reliable, but quite old school and someone who does things by the book. He’s not ambitious and he’ll clock off at 5pm whereas Winter will be awake at 4am and be back in the lab, doing things he’s not supposed to do.

What’s Winter’s first impression of DI Bell, and how does their relationship develop?

Winter‘s very charming, but his charms don’t work on Bell, which he finds perturbing. He initially describes her as being frosty, which is bordering on misogynistic towards a 40-something woman. But I think he’s doing it test her. Their relationship is a constant test of wills and how far she’ll go along the path he’s got in mind. They become a good team and there’s a mutual respect – but just when you think that they’ve found an accord, he’ll do something which really pisses her off and she’ll draw a line which he crosses pretty quickly. It’s like picking at a scab that’s a bit painful, but you can’t help it. They see each other’s brilliance. She’s driven and dominant, but without pulling rank or authority, with a great balance of gentle gravity, which I think is something he respects, because he’s more bombastic and enjoys bamboozling her with his brilliance. The murders they investigate are very complex, which is going to make the audience work hard as detectives.

Can you talk about their first case together and what else is in store during the series?

The first case is quite unusual. The team find a frozen body in the back of an articulated lorry, and that investigation leads them down quite a complicated path, to another unsolved case, which is seemingly unrelated. Every week, there’s a treasure hunt of quite random dots that Winter and Bell connect.

Winter is also investigating the murder of someone close to him. A man has been convicted and is in prison for the murder, but Winter starts to suspect they have the wrong man. What can you tell us about that?

A woman who died by suicide is brought into his lab with an unusual triangle symbol cut into her thumb. He recognises it as something quite specific, but initially dismisses it, because this person had shown signs of self-harm. However, when another body comes in with the same marking on their thumb, he realises there may be a serial killer out there. The person close to him whose death he is investigating had the same symbol on their thumb. So, this becomes the story arc for the season, because there’s somebody in prison who should have had the door slammed on them forever. But as these new cases come in, he realises that the wrong man might be locked up. My tip to viewers is to follow the triangle.

Winter works with junior pathologists Eddie and Jamila. How do they all get along?

Jamila’s brilliant and he headhunted her straight out of med school. Eddie’s had to work a bit harder than she has – not because he’s any less talented, but his mind works in a different way. There’s a competitive streak between them that Winter enjoys, and it gives the lab a sense of adventure and fun, which you wouldn’t expect. He’s setting them in the starting blocks and getting them running. It produces results, and that’s what he’s all about.

Are you squeamish?

I didn’t think I was until I went to the real lab for my research. Even though it had been cleaned, the minute I stepped inside, there was an aroma, and I was so relieved that there wasn’t a real autopsy to observe. I looked at all the equipment, tried on the gear and put the breathing masks on, but you could just smell something. That environment would not be for me. On set, we worked with lots of prosthetics, including full body casts with real people underneath. These actors were lying on slabs for 12 hours. One day, there was a young woman with a full body prosthetic, which had been opened in the chest and, between takes, I could see her having a sip of water and trying to hold her chest together. It was horrifying to look at. You think that person’s chest is completely open, and her heart’s exposed. I genuinely don’t know how pathologists go home at night and spatchcock a chicken.

This isn’t the first time you’ve played a doctor, but how did you find learning the medical terminology for Winter?

From experience, I know that you’ve got to have that medical jargon down like a foreign language. I can speak French, but I’m not fluent. However, Winter is fluent in science and technology jargon. He knows Latin and uses it to annoy Bell. You’ve got to get these words into your mouth like they’re muscle memory and not brand-new words. But you must also balance not confusing the audience with the terminology, while also representing somebody who has done this for 25 years.

Winter also drives a beautiful MG B GT, 1973 car. Were you nervous about getting behind the wheel?

Yes! I didn’t realise until I started watching the first few cuts of the show how small that car is compared to how big I am [laughs]. In the very first scene, when he gets off the cliff, dumps his stuff in the back and gets in, I thought it looked like a toy car. It was difficult to get in – I’m nearly 6’ 3” – so my knees were round my ears! There was no power steering, so it was hard driving around corners, and I couldn’t get in while wearing his big coat. Even getting out elegantly and then putting his jacket on was challenging. But I grew up driving a Mini, so I’m used to tiny British cars. It was a lovely car though and the kind of thing I’d draw as a kid. It reminded me of my dad’s Triumph, which I used to polish the chrome on.

He’s a very physical character. Did you require any special training?

I did about 10 sessions of indoor belaying on a climbing wall, where you climb with a harness on and a man attached to it. It wasn’t my favourite place in the world, and I also had a shoulder injury. I’m very good at mimicking though, so I’d get my climbing expert to show me how to make it look like Winter’s done this a lot. We were only climbing on a straight wall or a wall that was slightly inclined away. When we got to the scene where Winter was going to be on a climbing wall in the story, they’d set up the shot on a wall that went completely backwards. There was no way I could do that but, I had a go, got halfway up and then bottled it. I ended up with five guys hoisting me up, because I’m pretty heavy, but we got the shot. Coming down was much easier than going up.

How did you balance your interpretation of Winter alongside directors Dries Vos and Kaat Beels’ vision of him?

We were all in tune. What’s interesting about working with two directors simultaneously is that you’re always getting different points of view – but at the same time, because they both work within the same episodes, rather than taking separate ones each. It was exciting, and they were both really open to new suggestions and ways to make complicated scenes work. What’s difficult about a show like this is you can’t show too much of the bodies in their pathology state because you don’t want to shock the audience. Finding ways to shoot that was interesting. I don’t think a pathology show has been shot like this before.

Winter is a great cook. Are you?

I’m good at following a recipe and I can throw a few things together from memory, but they tend to be old school British things that my mum would make, so not fine cuisine. Thanks to my frugal student days, I’m very good at opening a completely bare cupboard and somehow managing to put together something to eat. I also loved all the food in Belgium, where we filmed. There’s a big French influence and even the prop food was incredible. I kept eating it, especially this extraordinary cheese and some blood oranges they were going to throw away!

What sets Winter aside from other crime procedural dramas?

It’s got both crime procedural and long form stories. The forensic style and the way that we enter the world of the victim through the discovery of the body, not necessarily in flashback, but as a way of mapping what happened to them, is quite unusual. Rather than starting with the murder, we begin with the investigation that then leads us back to how they were killed. And Winter’s laboratory is like no other lab I’ve ever seen before. It’s an old Victorian swimming pool in the middle of a forest. He’s developed this building deliberately in isolation, so he’s not disturbed.

How did you all get on as a cast?

Eating dinner together every day was lovely. One hot day, we were working at a disused psychiatric hospital in the middle of the forest, and I managed to get an ice cream van to come down to set just to sweeten everyone’s spirit. You don’t forget those moments, and I think it made us more of a family, because everyone gets together. I just wanted people to go home having had a brilliant day at work. That includes actors coming in for one scene who give emotional performances, often with no preparation. I’ve been one of those actors, and we’ve got to give them everything they need. We were careful to make sure everyone felt welcome and loved. We had a great wrap party. And Antwerp and Leuven are just beautiful.

What’s been the most challenging aspect of making Winter?

Working across all six episodes at the same time. I’ve never done that before. You normally work in blocks of two or three, and this made the shoot more efficient because you just do it one location at a time. But getting that linear consistency in my head was really challenging. It forces the scripts to be written, so there are no shocking surprises, and you can build a story arc for yourself. It’s still challenging because you need to know everything ahead of time.

And what do you hope audiences will take away after watching Winter?

I hope they connect to the story of the week, because they are challenging and I hope that they engage with and enjoy the ride between all the characters’ relationships. That they’re triggered by them, warmed by them and horrified by them, as we were. The goal is to bring the audience along with us as our characters are experiencing difficult and traumatic situations in their lives.

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