Emily Hampshire felt at home among ‘Line of Duty’ and ‘Game of Thrones’ actors in ‘The Rig’

Iain Glen’s and Emily Hampshire’s working relationship started with a couple of white lies.

He’s the Scottish actor who played Jorah Mormont, faithful knight to Daenerys Targaryen in “Game of Thrones”; she’s the Canadian actor who delighted as deadpan motel clerk Stevie Budd in “Schitt’s Creek.”

They are also the top-billed stars of “The Rig,” a supernatural thriller series set on an oil rig in the North Sea coming to Prime Video on Jan. 6.

They first met via Zoom when Hampshire was still being considered for the role of Rose, a no-nonsense petrochemical geologist who is on the rig to represent the oil company. Glen plays the offshore installation manager or the boss of the rig.

“What sticks out in my mind is that Iain, when he came on (the call), he was like ‘I’m such a fan of yours, “Schitt’s Creek.”’ And I was like, ‘You, “Game of Thrones.” I can’t believe I’m gonna get to work with you.’

“And then near the end of shooting, there were a few signs that, like, I don’t think he’s seen ‘Schitt’s Creek’ … And I’m like, ‘I haven’t seen “Game of Thrones” either.’ Neither of us have seen each other’s things,” she laughed on, yes, another Zoom call.

That was definitely no obstacle to her getting along famously with Glen and the rest of the cast, a who’s who of Scottish and other U.K. actors. In fact, “The Rig” was something of a “Game of Thrones” and “Line of Duty” reunion.

Scottish actor Martin Compston, Steve in “Line of Duty,” was the first one cast in the six-part series, which was filmed in Scotland. He plays the rig’s communications operator.

He was joined by “Line of Duty” alum Mark Bonnar, Rochenda Sandall, Richard Pepple and Owen Teale, the Welsh actor who also starred in “Game of Thrones” along with “Rig” cast mates Glen, Mark Addy and Emun Elliott.

“Oh my God, they are amazing!” Hampshire enthused about her fellow cast members.

“I first met everybody when I went to Scotland and we were shooting in, like, the height of COVID, so I couldn’t understand them when they had their masks off; I definitely could not understand anyone with their masks on, but they were so supportive. They reminded me a lot of Canadians … In Canada, there’s not really a star system, like (acting is) a blue collar job. You can have 10 movies at TIFF and you’re still just nobody. You’re not famous and there’s no ego about it.

“And that’s what I really felt with this whole cast, there were no egos. And everyone could make fun of themselves in the way that we do in Canada. So I just felt at home with them.”

Executive producer Derek Wax had nice things to say about Hampshire, too.

“We couldn’t have been luckier getting Emily Hampshire, because she loved the scripts,” Wax said in media notes about the show. “She wanted to come here in the middle of COVID and completely immersed herself in the research to play a scientist with a geological background. She was absolutely delightful to work with.”

The show was created by first-time TV writer David Macpherson, who has a master’s degree in environmental studies and has worked for climate change non-profits. He was inspired, he said in the press package, by the oil platforms he saw as a child growing up on the shores of Cromarty Firth in Scotland, by the fact his father spent most of his life on rigs, and by shows and movies he loved, like “Star Wars,” “Star Trek” and John Carpenter films.

“Some offshore workers will tell you it’s like spending half your life living inside a bomb and your job is to make sure it doesn’t go off. It’s dirty and dangerous work, and the only way the crews get through it is because they know after two weeks they get to leave. Except in our story, they don’t,” Macpherson said.

In “The Rig,” some of the crew of the fictional Kinloch Bravo are about to ship home when a mysterious fog rolls in, cutting off communications and making it impossible for helicopters to land.

Strange and frightening things start happening: power outages, unexplained tremors, inexplicable accidents involving crew members and, eventually, it seems that the crew of about 40 is threatened by ancient, elemental forces.

Underlying the series’ sci-fi and horror elements is a theme about environmental degradation, that the Kinloch Bravo is one of the last of a dying breed with fossil fuels threatening the planet — although Macpherson said he also wanted to portray the “dignity and justifiable pride” of oil rig workers.

Key members of the production team visited a real rig, the Stena Spey off the coast of Orkney. They even considered using a decommissioned rig as a set but ended up building one inside First Stage Studios, a former transformer factory in Leith, using stacked shipping containers with walkways and staircases welded to them, and parts of a real ship.

Director John Strickland (also part of the “Line of Duty” reunion, having directed 11 episodes of that show) said it was a small percentage of the size of a real rig, but Hampshire said it was still “massive. Basically all we were missing was water … I’ve never been on a set this big, like it felt like this massive blockbuster, but it also does half the acting for you because you don’t have to pretend in that scenario.”

There was, of course, some pretending, with visual effects to supplement things like wind, rain and fog machines. But there were also physical effects, like using giant motors to make the decks shake, and tanks and wave machines to flood a set built in a dry dock.

“I just thought it was such an epic kind of setting and story,” Hampshire said. “And I really felt like I related to Rose in the way that she’s really obsessed with work and very career driven. And she is this woman in a man’s world who doesn’t care about being liked and isn’t there to make friends.”

It seems questionable that Hampshire is a “nobody” now, to use her word.

Before this, she starred opposite Oscar winner Adrien Brody in the horror drama “Chapelwaite.”

“Now I get a lot more choice in people sending me things,” she said. “I don’t get the Julia Roberts projects or whatever, but the stories I’m getting sent are all because of the success of ‘Schitt’s Creek.’

“So I just want to choose wisely … just choosing stuff like this that when I read it I was excited by it and hopefully other people, when they see it, will feel the same way I did.”

Debra Yeo is a deputy editor and a contributor to the Star’s Entertainment section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo

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