Rebus: Outlander’s Richard Rankin talks about starring in the new BBC TV series based on Ian Rankin's crime novels

A contemporary Edinburgh setting and a younger detective make for a fresh new take on Ian Rankin’s legendary crimefighter

Richard Rankin is the latest actor to play detective sergeant John Rebus in the new BBC six part series adapted from Ian Rankin’s crime novels by Gregory Burke.

Based on the best-selling Inspector Rebus novels - of which there are 24 so far with the 25th, Midnight and Blue, due out in the autumn - the books have been adapted for TV before.

The role was previously played by John Hannah in series one of a four-part series produced by STV Studios for the ITV network and broadcast between 2000 and 2007, with Ken Stott starring in the subsequent three.

Richard Rankin stars as Detective Inspector John Rebus in the new BBC series. Set in contemporary Edinburgh, it's a modern take on the legendary Ian Rankin crime series. Pic: BBC

This time round Rebus is set in contemporary Edinburgh with a younger version of the detective drawn into a violently criminal conflict when he comes up against his old nemesis Ger Cafferty, while his own brother Michael ends up on the wrong side of the law.

As well as learning to work with new partner Siobhan Clarke, in this version a fast track graduate from out of town, Rebus is under pressure in his personal life, struggling with an ill-judged affair and feeling pushed out of his daughter’s life by her new stepdad.

RICHARD RANKIN TALKS ABOUT THE NEW REBUS.

IT’S A FAST-PACED SHOW THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO BINGE WATCH. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT?

Richard Rankin, who stars as the new Rebus in the BBC series set in contemporary Edinburgh.Photographer - Stewart Bryden, Stylist - Amanda Blackwood. Hair Stylist/Grooming - Quentin Tillepied. Photography Assistant - Kyle Henry Retoucher - Colorworkz

It does have that kind of drive. It’s exciting. You don’t know until people start giving you feedback, how it is, because as an actor who is in it, it’s very difficult to be objective and get a sense of how it makes people feel.

REBUS IS A CHARACTER PEOPLE THINK THEY KNOW AND ARE INVESTED IN. HOW DID YOU PUT YOUR STAMP ON HIM?

Yes, Rebus is a character people know and a lot of the TV audience is familiar with Ken Stott’s Rebus, but even Ken Stott’s Rebus is still quite different from the character in the books. It’s Ken Stott’s version of the character and he does it superbly well, but I’m obviously bringing my own idea of what I think Rebus is like.

We have a very different version, quite a different format anyway, because Gregory Burke has adapted the timeline and given it a contemporary setting and also made the character younger, so I thought about Rebus’s mentality had he been a much younger man, and that immediately changes everything.

Richard Rankin as Detective Inspector John Rebus, with Stuart Bowman as Ger Cafferty and Brian Ferguson as Michael Rebus. Pic: Eleventh Hour Films,Mark Mainz

I researched Ian Rankin’s original character in the books and how that developed through the narrative of the novels, did research online about the general vibe from the character, got stuck into the scripts, and tried to tie all these things together.

What we ended up with was a very interesting, exciting, fresh, reimagining of this character which has lots of potential. He has much further to go and we can still do it within the world that Ian Rankin’s created, albeit a bit differently, so I think it gives us much more scope.

And we have a huge amount of room with the source material because there are twenty plus books. Gregory has his own ideas but he’s obviously looking to draw from what are in their own right incredible novels. There are so many stories to tell, so many different ways we can do it but we’ve got a bit more vitality in this version because he is at an earlier stage of his life. That brings with it a different psychology, a different mentality to Rebus, and for me that was one of the big differences that I found really exciting. He’s much closer to his younger days and his time in the military and he’s at that tipping point of losing a grip on himself. So it’s incredibly dynamic and the other characters are so richly written that it brings it all together in a really exciting new way.

IT’S A MORE CONTEMPORARY REBUS, AND DRAWS ON HIS EXPERIENCE OF BEING WORKING CLASS, FROM FIFE, WITH MILITARY EXPERIENCE.

Richard Rankin and Sam Heughan in season seven of Outlander, 2023. Pic: Starz! Movie Channel/Everett/Shutterstock

I think that’s very important to Gregory. He grew up in a small working class town in Fife, like Ian Rankin so they have very similar roots, and I think that’s why this works so well. The honesty and realism come through.

Telling the story in a modern Edinburgh brings new elements into an already successful format. There are computers and iPads and TikTok and Instagram, the influx of tourism and incomers and you've Rebus’s daughter’s stepfather trying to set up million pound trust funds for her. These things allow us to plug in more immediately because it is our world now.

Greg has things he really wants to say, especially about the military, which is something he knows about. He wrote Black Watch, right.

WHICH YOU WERE IN, BACK IN 2010-13.

Yes, which will probably always remain one of the highlights of my career. Gregory Burke always said he’d write something for me but I never believed him, and here we are.

With Rebus there is a similar vein to Black Watch because it’s like these boys he wrote about have grown up and where are they now? That brings with it a certain substance, the experiences, the potential PTSD at points. That's the background Rebus is coming from so how does that inform the man? There are a lot of complexities to it and that’s one of the things I really love about it.

Richard Rankin stars as Detective Inspector John Rebus in the TV series adapted from Ian Rankin's crime novels. Photographer - Stewart Bryden, Stylist - Amanda Blackwood. Hair Stylist/Grooming - Quentin Tillepied. Photography Assistant - Kyle Henry Retoucher - Colorworkz

The key elements of Rebus’s character are still there, along with characters like Ger Cafferty and Siobhan, but he’s younger and possibly more impetuous, plus he has a brother so there’s that relationship to explore.

Brian Fergusion is incredible as his brother Michael. I’ve been a fan of his since Black Watch and seen a lot of his theatre work. We think they grew up in a household where love wasn’t on display with a father who left and had a bit of an alcohol problem and was probably quite physical. It’s quite a complicated brotherly relationship where they don’t know how to communicate their love for one another. But as the story goes on you see they do really care. It’s another beautifully written relationship. There’s a surface transparency to their aggression but Rebus very much tries to keep a lid on it.

DID YOU GET FEEDBACK FROM IAN RANKIN AT ALL?

Yes, I met him a couple of times on set. Strangely Ian Rankin and I have been talking for quite a while on social media, and had this joke for years where he’s my uncle Ian. He said he was going to write a show I was going to be in. He basically told Greg after the initial conception that he could do what he wanted with it and he’s very pleased with what he has done. He was very excited by, and even said he missed a trick with, the relationship of the brothers, John and Michael. I think he finds that quite a gripping aspect of the new version.

WHAT WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF FILMING?

The cast. They were just phenomenal - their approach to the work, what they’ve brought to the characters. They all have their own story to tell and they just put 100% into it.

The women in this particularly are utterly phenomenal. Lucie’s [Shorthouse] great, brings a lovely gentle, inexperienced quality to Siobhan which is perfect for that graduate fasttrack cop who lacks the street smarts and it was great to bounce off of her with that arrogant, know-it-all, against the bureaucracy attitude Rebus has. And Amy [Manson], who plays Rhona delivered some really beautiful work, and Michelle [Duncan] and Neshla [Caplan] were all just wonderful and that drove me so much every single day.

WHERE DID YOU FILM?

Edinburgh, Glasgow, South Lanarkshire. We filmed pretty much all of our exteriors in Edinburgh and we have some extraordinary locations like The Mound, Edinburgh Castle, The Royal Mile, some closes off The Royal Mile. It was great to get permission to film there. Maybe it’s because it’s Rebus.

DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ONE?

I hope so. I don’t see us running out of material and it’s all really brilliantly written. There’s a wealth of material from Ian Rankin and original material by Greg Burke. Mix those and you’ll always get brilliant storytelling. It would be beyond me if they found they couldn’t continue with subsequent seasons, but who knows?

YOU’RE CURRENTLY FILMING THE FINAL SEASON OF OUTLANDER, IN WHICH YOU PLAY ROGER WAKEFIELD MACKENZIE. HOW IS THAT GOING?

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that in the first part they’re in the 1980s, which is cool. So that’s relatively contemporary because the core of it is 18th century. Although the 1980s feels relatively recent, it’s kind of not. The vehicles, how people dressed, what was going on in the world, it was a very different time and place. In a lot of respects it’s as much of a leap as jumping back to the 18th century.

YOU’VE PLAYED ROGER WAKEFIELD MACKENZIE SINCE 2015. IS IT NICE PLAYING A GOOD GUY?

Yeah it is. He doesn’t really have a bad bone in his body. But actors often want to play someone with a darker streak and I sometimes wish he was maybe just a wee bit darker.

HOW DOES THE SERIES END?

Season eight will be the last season of Outlander as far as I know and as to how it ends, do you want the truth or a lie?

BOTH.

The truth is I don’t know. I don’t think THEY know. The lie is that they go into the future and travel too far, and climate change is unstable and looking apocalyptic, so they all transport to a newly-colonised Mars.

THE FANS MIGHT LOVE THAT.

As I was saying that I was thinking that’s not a bad idea.

HOW DID BEING IN OUTLANDER CHANGE THINGS FOR YOU IN YOUR CAREER?

It films for such a large part of a year you’re left with quite a small amount of free time to do other things, but we have more choice about the work we take on. It’s given us the security to do the work we want to do, which is an incredible position to be in.

I’ve loved doing Outlander. It’s kept me in work for eight or nine years and given me the means to do things for the love of doing them. Theatre - you’re almost out of pocket doing it sometimes so you have to want to do it - and TV, I’ve done because it appealed to me. I got to do The Replacement, Trust Me, and little projects of my own, photo exhibitions. And it gives an incredible amount of experience, filming such a huge show over years in a lead capacity. You learn a lot and it frees you up as an actor and increases your range and capacity. So it’s been life changing.

YOU’RE 41 NOW AND HAVE HAD A HUGE VARIETY OF ROLES IN YOUR CAREER, IN FILM, THEATRE, TV, RADIO AND COMEDY. ARE YOU PLEASED WITH HOW IT’S WORKED OUT?

I’ve done TV, theatre [appearing in the sell out Macbeth at the Almeida in 2021], and now a title role in a new show. It’s been a lot of fun. I think my career’s panned out quite nicely. I’m still young, I like to think.

I’d like to do a couple of movies and some more Rebus because I think we’ve just teed it up. We’ve established characters and relationships and the world at the same time as having a real driving plot and narrative that’s exciting. I feel like we’re just getting to know these people. I think it has endless potential, so there’s a load I want to do with the character.

My career’s in a great place, I think I’ve got some great momentum, I think Rebus is going to do really well, and whether or not I start looking to get a bit more directing and production, because that’s something I’m interested in - I love my photography and that idea of getting behind the camera - or whether I’ll continue down the path of getting involved in some really interesting projects, I don’t know.

But I’m very excited and very hopeful for what’s to come. I think it’s going to be an entirely new, fresh chapter of my career.

Rebus will launch on Friday 17 May. All episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer from 6am, with episode one airing on BBC Scotland on Friday 17 May at 10pm and on BBC One on Saturday 18 May at 9:25pm.