He is an award winning actor, you know, from the walking dead fear the walking dead on snatching so much Mauritz An honor toe Welcome the obscenely talented Lennie James to the show.

Lenny, I'm so happy that you're here.

I've wanted you on the show for so long.

I'm thrilled that you're here, but I didn't know this is your first late night talk show appearance.

How are you feeling?

I'm all right.

I'm gonna ask you to be kind to me, But I'm all right.

I'm calm.

I'm in my own house, so I feel comfortable now.

You've been You've been working for years.

You've played so many great parts on.

Obviously, as a writer, I think you're URAS good as anyone.

Right in television at the moment.

How did you get your start in the industry?

I followed the girl into an audition and I had no real idea what auditioning Waas.

But I really like this girl.

And she was going to spend the whole summer holiday doing this play.

So I went down, auditioned, had no idea what to do, And the director gave me a speech to do and told me to sing a song, so I didn't know what song to sing.

So I found my brother and said, You have to tell me a song that white people might like because I'm doing this Bishop s o.

He told me to sing Dez O'Connor feelings on.

All right.

All right.

There was one of the ladies lived in our neighborhood.

Used to sing that song all the time and play it all the time.

So I learn the words and went in and sang it, and the director said, I'm gonna give you a part in this play But don't ever sing that song again on I'm like, All right on it on a worked out.

But what about writing?

It will worked out.

What about what about writing?

Because I didn't know that you that you wrote.

Actually, until we'll talk about save me shortly.

I didn't know that you you had this in you.

Where did this weather e didn't really I actually my first play when I was 16.

I'm hanging about with a bunch of friends that you make when you start doing plays and we start talking about plays and someone said you reckon you could write one?

And I said, I bet I can And he said, I bet I bet you can't.

And so I wrote one and then I entered, entered it into the National Youth Theater playwrighting competition, and it won and, well, 11 of the prizes and I was nominated most promising playwright under 21.

And then, unbeknownst to me, one of the judges from that competition was asked to create a new anthology for Favor in favor of new plays.

And he put my play up and I didn't find out about it until they phoned me at home saying We'd like Thio check your bio GTA and I'm like I got no idea what biogas may Andi he goes thing.

We put the back of the book and I went, What book?

And they went with publishing your play, and I'm like, All right, sweet.

So that's kind of how it happened.

And I've kind of having done nothing until I was 16.

By the time I was 89 been into plays and was a published playwright.

Wow.

I mean, I have to congratulate you, and I've told you, and I basically tell anybody who works on the show or anyone that I meet these days over various zooms, that they have to watch your show.

Congratulations on Save Me and now save me, too.

For anyone who hasn't caught up with the show yet, it's so good it's so deserving of all of the praises getting for anyone doesn't know, Tell them what it's about, who you play.

Save Me is based around a character called Nelly Row, who's a kind of, I think in the States.

They call him a bar fly where back home with just basically called him a functioning alcoholic.

He's that guy and he's that guy in the PA Booze there.

Every single time has got his own place at the bar, probably as his own pint jug behind the bar, and he tells stories of the night before in the pub on one morning around at one of Nelly's girlfriends.

He's woken up by the police, and he's accused of kidnapping his estranged daughter, a daughter he hasn't seen for 10 years and since she was three years old and she's run away from home, telling her mom and stepfather that she's gone to see her dad on.

What nearly finds out is that his child has been groomed and taken away.

But whoever groomed her groomed her pretending to be him and knows riel things about him.

So Nellie sets out, toe a find his kid and be prove his innocence.

It's the most brilliantly made on the execution of the show is incredible, and it's a really important and timely subject matter on you.

Deal with it so delicately, brilliantly, just the very topic of child trafficking.

Did you did you know anything?

You know how it's imagine it's a re difficult thing to research child traveling.

How did you What did you draw on before you started writing this show?

It's a weird one, really, because my impetus to write in the show was, I just wanted to write a thriller, Really?

On Ben.

When I came up with the basic premise of the idea, I had to kind of I wanted to do justice to the things I didn't wanna be glib about it.

I didn't wanna be TV about it.

I wanted to see how it would operate in the real world, and basically the story of saving is you're following Nelly's journey to try and find some kind of redemption.

He blames himself for the bad parent, the bad father, that he's being that he hasn't bean in his daughter's life.

And if he had Bean in her life, then none of this will be happening to her.

So when I was doing the research, you know, you have to be very careful about what you put in the search engine in your or computer, so I would tend to.

When I was doing research, I try and find articles that had already been published.

So I wasn't looking up general information.

I was looking up stories that had kind of come up, and I would, and I would kind of incorporate them.

And that's the kind of the way that I would do my research.

Wow.

And I know for a fact I know before I even ask it that you must be so bored of this question.

Uh huh, because, uh, you know, I urge anybody watching.

So saved me, too, is out.

Now.

If you haven't caught it, you could go back and watch.

All will be 12 episodes, right?

That 12 episodes 12.

You can American.

You can watch them all straight through.

You could devour it on.

Have you thought at all about a season three?

I have.

Yeah.

I've been thinking almost about nothing else.

Really trying to trying to figure out the best way of doing it.

I mean, the kind of locked down in isolation has had an effect on it.

Because we've got some young actors in Save me who?

You know, I can't stop them aging.

I can't stop them, you know?

So I've got to take that into account.

And when I picked, you know, I placed the next season, but we had a actually, the first person I told this to.

We had a conversation the other day, and I think we've got to a place where we know what we're gonna do next time around.

Is this because I just pitched you an idea off the air and you thought, It's so good?

It's so good.

I'm going to claim it.

I'm going to say it's mine between you telling it between you telling it to may be coming here.

I've found my agent and gone.

Oh, I've got a really good idea.

Nothing would make me happier.