Actor and stunt performer Adam Basil is the latest embodiment of 2000AD’s upholder of the law in Megacity One, Judge Dredd for the new releases of adaptations of classic tales including Origins and the various encounters with Judge Death. With a wealth of experience in the Marvel universe movies and Game of Thrones, amongst many other genre shows, Basil chatted with Paul Simpson about the challenges of playing Joe Dredd…

How familiar were you with Judge Dredd before being asked to play him?

The Stallone movie, that was my first Dredd experience. I’ve always been familiar with the magazines, the comics, because of the British element. It’s one of ours but Stallone was my start. It wasn’t until later on that I got into the other guys.

Did you actually read any of the comics growing up?

I wasn’t allowed to (laughs). My friends would have them and I would be peering over their shoulders but my mum wouldn’t let me.

So, how did this gig come about?

I heard talk about it and I wanted to get involved so I chased up my agent and they got me in the room. I knew from other people it was going on, they were auditioning multiple people and I was like ‘I need to be part of this.’ He’s such a great character.

What was it about Joe Dredd that grabbed you?

I think it was just his no nonsense approach – and the whole world, I’m in love with it – but as a character his approach to stuff, his no nonsense, “let’s go, OK job done,” bam bam bam, back on the bike and he’s out of there. Just good fun.

There are two ways of looking at Dredd: either he’s almost a figure of satire or he is the ultimate law man, as in he doesn’t actually think about justice, he’s Dirty Harry taken to the ultimate extreme.

Dirty Harry’s a great description of him really. You don’t get any chances with him: it’s cut and dry and then straight to the guns – and that’s Dirty Harry in a nutshell.

Did you go back to the original comics or did you just work from what was in the scripts that you were given?

We dived straight into the scripts, Origins was the one we went into first. Other than that, I wasn’t familiar with them, as such. I knew the world, I knew the characters but that was my introduction to it full on.

So in your preparation for doing this, you didn’t go back to the comics, you stayed with purely the audio version of it.

Yes, exactly that. They are 160 page scripts, they’re heavy duty, really very close to the original products so there’s not much left unturned.

The great thing about the audio is you can bring it to life, you can hear us going on the bikes, you can hear the gunshots, the battles, the punches, the pressure, that kind of element. You can get that visually from a comic point of view: we’re in the world, we’re looking at it and we feel it and we create our own worlds. Well, here we create the worlds: you’re in there, you feel the rumbling from the machines as they’re crushing across the wasteland. And every element of it, the fighting, the BOOM BOOSH and you’re there and then wiping the blood off their faces.

You bring the experience of stunt fighting – were you actually reacting physically when you were in the studio as you are now on Zoom as we talk?

Yes. We did everything except for actually throwing ourselves on the floor, diving through windows or smashing ourselves through desks. We really do physically BAM BAM [he mimes the punches]. You feel it and like you say, I have got some experience with this stuff through a lot of physical acting. I’ve had my fair share of punch ups in multiple films from Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Avengers, Spider-Man, all these movies where we were getting propelled, so I know what it’s like to have the wind knocked out of me, for sure!

Although obviously for the audios these aren’t rehearsed fights; here you are presumably just going straight in and doing what you would do in that circumstance.

Yes. And it really helps with the timing because we’re talking about real fights. When someone smashes you in the face or hits you in the stomach BAM, there are delays in what you’re delivering back. So it’s important to have that when we’re delivering real content and we really want to get the audience involved. We’re talking about real blows. Other than [director] Christopher [Thompson] wouldn’t appreciate me diving through the window of the sound booth..(laughs).

So were you recording with other people or were you just doing your bit?

Just me doing it, three scripts across three days. But Chris is excellent… he knows the characters so well, that he’d give it to you and then to play off that is absolutely incredible. He’d give me these characters and I’d give him Judge back so it was cool and good fun.

The voice of Dredd is one of those things that we know when it’s right. There’s a pitch, a timbre to it that has to be there. Did you go back to the Stallone version or did you just basically go ‘This is me as Dredd’ and have your very fixed idea of what you were going to do?

I looked at a few different versions of it but I had it in my head already. I knew enough about him to know what he was about. I felt that he has that inner monologue: he knows what’s right and wrong. There is that heaviness to it, you can feel it. You can feel the rain beating down, you can feel the hard machinery flying past, he’s off to do business.

You find your own place with it. He’s just a kick-ass, no nonsense guy.

Were you using a lot of chest voice for it? It feels like it’s one of those parts that really needs to come from the diaphragm rather than any sort of head voice.

Yes, it’s deep deep down and that’s exactly how I tried to play it. I tried to just go deep dark, dusty, hasn’t slept a lot, brutal, smashed up, carrying a couple of injuries or two as he’s going along. Off to do business again, in the world.

Would you like to come back and return to Dredd?

Yes, I’d love to. I think there are more planned so we’ll see.

What got you into doing this in the first place?

I started as an actor and I was in theatre and any actor, as you know, will tell you that it’s really hard to get jobs, it’s hard to get an agent. One day I bumped into a stunt man at a funeral. He told me about the UK stunt register so I went off and studied. You have to be at national level in six different disciplines, so I did fighting and scuba diving, high diving, rally racing, all this stuff to qualify. I’ve had ten more years of stunting but it’s still acting. It’s not just falling over, we’re still characters, we’re still people.

Then as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to focus more on acting. I squeak now, you can hear me squeaking as I walk, and my bicep has two titanium screws in it. This is a natural progression for me, to go back to where I started from and these kick-ass characters are the best.

Is there a particular role either to double as a stunt or to act that you’d really go for?

I’d love it if when they start talking about making the new Dredd, to get the call for that. That’s what I’d like to do; let’s do it!

This is my personal opinion: they often train actors to do this stuff and they don’t look into the stunt world enough. I’ve done over 100 movies, I train everyday. You don’t need to give me six months to get ready to play Dredd. Give me the helmet and let’s go. So we get actors pretending they’re tough guys? Why don’t we just choose the tough guys?

Judge Dredd; Origins is available now from Penguin Random House