Sure, we know that actors do make-believe.
Chances are, Tom Hanks has never piloted a space ship, Anthony Perkins hasn’t stabbed anyone, Anthony Hopkins hasn’t eaten anyone.
But in the rare times when an actor and a role merge neatly, the resultscan be fascinating. Meet Professor Jasper Tempest. “This character really, really fascinates me,” said Ben Miller (shown here), who plays him.
When “Professor T” begins its season (8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 3, on PBS), it could be considered the start of the TV season. Two shows follow – “Unforgotten” at 9 p.m., “Van der Velk” at 10. Each has smart mysteries, at a time when strikes have silenced most scripted shows; “T” also has an intriguing blend of the main character and the actor who plays him.
Tempest is a Cambridge criminology professor, a crisp lecturer, struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder and a lack of people skills. Think of him as Sheldon or the “Good Doctor,” turned crimesolver.
Miller is much better at people skills. “He’s very focused, very nice,” said Emma Naomi, who co-stars as a policeman. “He knows comedy …. Because he’s also a writer, he can talk about character.”
And he’s worked to shed his obstalces. “My OCD started to be noticeable …. It started to get in the way,” he recalled. “I had so many procedures I had to go through before I could do something.”
He was fairly quick to get help, which made a difference. Now the professor reluctantly tries therapy.
There are other ways Miller, 57, links with the prof … including the whole notion of classroom lectures. His dad was an American-literature professor at an English college.
“I used to love going to his lectures,” Miller said. “I always wanted to be an actor and it seemed like a performance …. He used to dress completely in black,” with some students dubbing him Doctor Death.
Miller went to Cambridge, a huge leap for a kid from an English town of 14,000. “It was like stepping back in time; it’s remarkable how little it has changed.” And it had no intention of changing further; at the orientation, a don told students they were a mere blip in the fabric of Cambridge history.
He majored in science and began working toward a doctorate in physics. But then he started drifting toward theater and comedy. He dropped out of grad school, “much to my supervisor’s lack of surprise.”
Decades of British TV followed, including lots of sketch comedies and the first two seasons of the mystery series “Death in Paradise.” Miller occasionally reached American viewers, including on “Bridgerton” as Lord Featherington, a consistent loser in gambling and life.
Now comes “Professor T,” tying together large parts of Miller’s life. There he is, in a fictional version of Cambridge, in an ampitheater-like classroom, giving lectures a little like his dad’s, but about crime.
“It’s completely factual,” he said of the lectures. “I’ve learned a lot, especially how most crimes are committed by people (whom the victims) know.”
Then the professor helps solve crimes, while slowly working on his own psyche. “Some of those walls he’s built around himself are starting to crumble.”
The filming is mostly in Belgium. Miller returns home to a life that’s more pleasant than the professor’s. That includes his wife (Jessica Parker, a former production executive), their daughter (he has two sons from a previous marriage) … and his wife’s dad, guitar great Alan Parker.
“I’m a very keen guitarist,” Miller said. So he visited his father-in-law’s studio … stared at guitars that had done some of the most famous riffs in rock history … and saw the sitar featured on Beatles records.
Then he tried to learn one famous guitar riff. “There were only seven notes, but I suddenly saw how difficult it was. He got quite upset with me when I couldn’t do it.”
Miller understood the feeling. Professor T also “gets quite cross when people just don’t understand.” That’s part of the character’s charm and/or frustration.
(“Professor T” was contracted pre-strike)