Straw Dogs and
Die Hard). In
The Raid’s 2014 sequel, the Welsh director heightened the drama surrounding the destruction with an ensemble of fascinating auxiliary characters, and he gets similarly impressive turns from his side players in
Gangs of London. Among these, none are more memorable than Kinney, played by the Welsh actor Mark Lewis Jones, whose performance is brutal, mesmerizing, and, ultimately, heartbreaking.
Mads Koudal in
“At the front of every character in
Gangs of London is this enormous capacity for extreme violence and brutality, but I think the success of the series lies just behind that,” Jones tells me. “These people are capable of huge violence, but that’s not all they are; at its heart this episode is about a father’s love for his son and the sacrifices he’s willing to make to save him.”