Ross Kemp: ‘TV hard man is a bloody cliché I hate – I’m too old to be hard’

“I don’t think you’ve seen anything like it before,” Kemp tells RadioTimes.com of his latest five-part series.

Filmed over four months, Mafia and Britain follows the host as he travels the world meeting academic experts, retired FBI agents and even reformed mafiosi who once made millions from drugs and other contraband while ruthlessly eliminating opposition.

“I don’t remember the faces,” one person tells Kemp of his victims. “I remember the sound of the bodies hitting the ground.”

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“That’s better than The Sopranos script,” Kemp marvels.

After two decades spent in gangland, war zones and prisons, meeting some astonishing characters along the way, you might expect Kemp to be more casual by now.

But he stresses that this is not the case: “The normalization of it is something that is always a little bit bewildering – especially the nonchalant attitude towards death.”

It wasn’t always easy to encourage former Mafia members to participate in his new program. Kemp noted that it could be “dangerous and potentially deadly” if they gave him an interview.

“I tried to talk to the participants who were with us one moment and gone the next. You have to understand that there was of course a lot of paranoia surrounding making a program like this.”

Kemp himself is also uncomfortable raising a “highly sensitive and controversial issue”, but he stresses that Mafia and Britain is intended as a historical document and not an expose of the organised crime gangs active today.

“I’m concerned about when this will come out and the impact it will have. But let’s be very, very clear: this is not an investigation into the mafia and what they’re doing now. I wouldn’t do that because it’s too dangerous, far too dangerous.

“This is not an in-depth undercover investigation into the current operations of organised crime groups in the UK. If it was, I would be wearing a bulletproof vest when I went out… and I don’t really want to.”

What appealed to Kemp about this subject was the opportunity to capture the historical links between Britain and the mafia, which many of us are either unaware of or simply turn a blind eye to.

“There’s more than just the Italian Mafia operating in the UK. There are a lot of organised crime gangs operating here. And by ‘the Mafia’, which used to mean Cosa Nostra (the Sicilian Mafia), we mean all sorts of things… it’s a big umbrella.

“But proving it? Not so easy. Will you lift that stone and look underneath? Me? Not personally.”

The activities of criminal networks are something that Kemp, after 20 years, is still fascinated by. However, he also admits that the subjects of his documentaries are somewhat determined by what the public expects of him.

“It’s horses for courses – no one is going to ask me to do the gardens of the stately homes of Britain. I’d love to do that – I love history and I think you’d probably get some really good stories – but that’s not what people want me to do.

“That’s a hangover from ‘TV hard man,’ which is a f**king cliché that I hate. The truth is, I’m getting too old to be tough… I can’t even handle my own kids.”

Yet he has lost none of his passion: he wants to venture into places where others might not dare to go, to tell stories that he finds important.

“I wish I could make Extreme World for the rest of my life (Kemp’s Sky series about violence, crime, drug trafficking and other global issues ran from 2011 to 2017) – unfortunately it’s becoming increasingly difficult to make this kind of programme.

“I presented something to someone the other day and he said, ‘I don’t think there are enough layers to it…’ What the f**k does that mean?

“It’s a shame because the world hasn’t gotten any better since I created it. I would argue that in my time on the planet, unfortunately, we’ve done more to destroy it and created more problems.

“The situation has not improved, so more films need to be made to make people aware of where we are and what the causes are.”

Read more:

Ross Kemp: Mafia and Britain airs Tuesdays from 10th September at 9pm on Sky History. A companion book based on the series will also be published by Octopus Books on 19th September.

Watch more documentaries we’ve aired or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what’s on. For more of TV’s biggest stars, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.