David Tennant on his role in true-crime drama Litvinenko

“Litvinenko had no doubt about it: a crime like this would not be committed without Vladimir Putin’s say-so and knowledge.” So says BAFTA winner David Tennant (Doctor Who, Broadchurch), who stars in the British true-crime drama Litvinenko, now available to binge on Showmax. Directed by BAFTA nominee Jim Field Smith (Truth Seekers, The Wrong Mans) and written by Black Reel nominee George Kay (Lupin), the four-part series has been hailed by Den of Geek as “Line of Duty with a Russian twist… a bold, powerful, furious statement on high-scale corruption.”

David plays former Russian spy and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died from Polonium-210 poisoning in November 2006, but not before accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of his murder.

Litvinenko’s death in a London hospital bed triggered one of the most complex and dangerous investigations in the history of the London Metropolitan Police force, but coming into the project, David knew only the bare bones of the story.

“Like everyone, I remember seeing that image of Alexander ‘Sasha’ Litvinenko in the hospital bed and coming up to speed on the whole story very quickly. It all felt so implausible at first, like something from a James Bond film. It didn’t feel like something that happened in the real world.”

“Alexander Litvinenko and his family had moved to Britain and were British citizens,” explains David. “He thought he had reached safety and escaped the talons of this regime. That he had done the right thing for his family.”

But Litvinenko hadn’t retired into a quiet life. “He refused to stop speaking truth to power,” says David. “He was appalled and terrified about what was happening to this country he loved. He couldn’t look away and that was why he was ultimately assassinated.”

“It speaks to his extraordinary moral compass. You wonder how you would behave in circumstances like that? Would you have that courage? Would you be that brave? I don’t know that I would,” says David.

Litvinenko’s murder would spark an investigation like no other, starting even before he died. “For a start,” says David, “nobody would believe Sasha. Although he was certain he had been poisoned, it seemed so unlikely that he had to convince people he knew what he was talking about. Then they had to start this investigation and all the time there is this ticking clock of a body that is closing down. He is the only witness to his own murder.”

The show’s creators opted to prioritise authenticity over drama, because, as David puts it, it was already quite implausible that it worked out as it did at all. “There is so much about the story that is extraordinary. The fact he survived as long as he did, which is the only way we managed to find out what it was that eventually killed him.”

“…He should have, as was intended, just slipped away as an unexplained death and we would not be any the wiser,” believes David. “But that in itself then creates bigger questions. You think, ‘How many times has this happened and it’s remained undiscovered?’ It was only his physical tenacity in hanging on as long as he did - and a few quirks of fate that allowed the right people to see the right test results - that allowed us to uncover the full horrors of what this meant.”

And that was only the beginning. The investigating officers on the case soon found themselves following a very dangerous trail of breadcrumbs. The polonium that had poisoned Litvinenko had left radioactive signatures all along the journey to its intended victim – which also meant it could be traced back to its source.

“Polonium has been described as the most poisonous substance on Earth,” says David. “It’s terrifyingly cavalier the way they transported this stuff across the world. It could have killed many more people. But as far as we know it was only Sasha who was a victim of it.”

“This is a substance that can only have come from one specific place,” continues David, “which is why we are so certain he was poisoned by Russia.”

But Litvinenko is more than a story of high-stakes political intrigue. As David explains, “There is so much about this story that is fantastical, implausible and remarkable. …But I think what makes it really count is [that it’s] a very personal story about Sasha, his wife Marina [played in the series by Margarita Levieva from The Deuce and Adventureland] and son Anatoly.”

“[Litvinenko] sacrificed his dying days to get this story out there. That must have been so difficult, for Marina particularly,” says David. “I met Marina and, I think for all of us involved in this, she became the motivation for telling this story, the reason why we had to get this right and the person we all feel responsible to. This was not the life she ever imagined for herself or signed up for. And yet, there is a bravery to her. Presumably having seen what happened to her husband she must be, on some level, nervous for herself. But when you meet her all you get is this extraordinary woman who just wants to shout about this as loudly as she can for the rest of her life.”

The Scotland Yard investigation ultimately led to the European Court of Human Rights’ 2021 ruling that Russia was indeed responsible for Litvinenko’s murder.

“There’s a famous line where Putin dismisses the whole business and says [Litvinenko is] gone, he’s not Lazarus,” says David. “But if we can achieve anything with telling this story it’s to allow him to be Lazarus. To keep him rising from the dead and pointing the finger and not letting this be forgotten. That’s Marina’s mission and one we’re all very proud to be part of.”