Spies usually take vacations from spy movies. Not that they are envious of James Bond, his flings or his gadgets. It’s just that they don’t engage in extraordinary feats. It’s just that they want to be simply portrayed as intelligent and want a convincing backdrop.

Liaison, a British-French coproduction, puts story over spy toys, turning in a powerful plot where realpolitik is an integral element. The six-part Apple TV+ series (streams on February 24) “explores how the mistakes of our past have the potential to destroy our future” and that big mistake is Brexit.

“Every episode I see, I see a certain degree of realness, of believability in the show. Yes, there is what some may call a cynical view of the world. I see it as something more realistic than what we see on the news. What the audience has been told about the reality of the world is not always accurate. Things get played behind (the scenes) and these things have to do with international interest. And that’s where the real politics is actually happening,” says Vincent Cassel, putting forward his usual unflappable self, during a video call with The Telegraph. The actor doesn’t coat his words with any of the romanticism the French are known for.

‘Fiction is going to influence the way people think’

The French-English-Apple collaboration has a lot to do with having wrong priorities and trusting the wrong people. The chain of events the story triggers shows the hurry with which the English have cut off ties with the European Union. The UK’s departure is fine but have they put enough thought into penning down agreements? In Liaison, it’s about how nonchalant Britain has been when it comes to cybersecurity agreements with its continental neighbours. Terrorism breeds as soon as there is a slip-up. In the Stephen Hopkins-directed series, the Brits are at a disadvantage as their national security is at peril — communications on the train network have been compromised and so have the very system running the show at the security headquarters of the country.

The 56-year-old actor plays down the Brexit angle. “I don’t think fiction is going to influence the way people think about the world. Maybe some people will say, ‘Ah, I knew that was coming like this.’ But is that going to influence the way they’re going to vote? I don’t think so.”

Vincent Cassel is one of Frances’s premier exports to Hollywood. He has been at equal ease playing the hero as well as the villain over a long career, winning him enough points among critics. He won the Cesar Award for Best Actor for his role as the criminal Jacques Mesrine in Mesrine. In Hollywood, he will be at once recognised as the dreaded assassin in Jason Bourne in which he plays the Asset, who harbours a personal grudge against Bourne. Or for his portrayal of a predatory ballet director in Black Swan. There is also the classic François Toulour in Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen.

In Liaison he plays Gabriel Delage, a French military contractor operating in Syria. When a plan goes wrong, he has to set it right but has to go past Eva Green’s Alison Rowdy, chief adviser to a senior British government minister. They have a past but is he going to use it to get work done?

Make no mistake, Liaison too uses the roguish sexiness that has made him attain leading-man status. In one of the chase scenes, he is Tasered by a cop but he manages to speed off in a car. Soon we see Alison tending to the wound and toned torso. Their past is not over.

At the same time, he puts up a realistic act because of the way he has brought his character, Gabriel, to life. “I never inspire myself by fictional characters. I have been lucky enough to meet some guys. I am very happy about how Gabriel has been drawn. He is about my age, born in 1966. He has worked for more or less every agency in the world. He started as a soldier and he was so good that he has been contacted by the DGSE. Then he is deceived by the French because it’s been abandoned in some countries. So he decides to put his talents before anybody who is willing to pay,” says Cassel.

Vincent and George Clooney in Ocean’s Twelve

Vincent Cassel with Natalie Portman in Black Swan

In the 1998 film Elizabeth, directed by Shekhar Kapur

Bolly opportunity

The actor’s life is always under public scrutiny. When it’s not for his films, it’s about the way he met Monica Bellucci on the set of Gilles Mimouni’s 1996 thriller L’Appartement, their divorce in 2013 after 18 years, and his marriage to French model Tina Kunakey in 2018.

He is also under the spotlight for his physical transformation to play a role. When he portrayed a gangster in Mesrine, he bulked up his physique. To play the controlling artistic director in Black Swan, the training left him with multiple blisters. For Liaison, he did exactly what Stephen Hopkins asked him to.

“Years ago, Stephen directed a remake of a French film. It was called Under Suspicion. It was with my ex-wife, Monica Bellucci, and Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. I was lucky enough to meet him in Cannes. And we spent some good times together. So when his name appeared, and after I saw 24 (he directed some episodes of the crime drama television series), I knew that I was in good hands,” says the actor.

And then there is his wishlist, which popped up after meeting Shekhar Kapur many years ago. He played Henry, Duke of Anjou, in Elizabeth. “It was really interesting to work with him. I’d love to make a movie in India. Once I was contacted to do a Bollywood movie but ultimately it didn’t happen. But I was so thrilled by the idea of going over to India and working there.”

Before the call was over, we wondered if he wants to show the world around him through the characters he plays. “Well, not necessarily. But believe it or not, if you’re involved in what I do, there is always a part that’s going to appear in the characters. What I wanted to do with this one in particular… I wanted to install a very French antihero at the centre of the story for an international audience,” he says with a smile and a lilt in his voice.

That lilt, of course, he is proud of. He has spent a big part of his life living with his mother in New York. Sabine Litique was the food editor for Elle magazine’s American edition. It was in the Big Apple he realised that he missed the streets in Montmartre where he grew up and Camembert. Hopefully, the British-French TV series will also arouse an interest in the crumbly Cheshire cheese.