Matthew Goode on Department Q: Netflix’s Dark New Crime Drama & His Most Compelling Role Yet

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10 min read

Words - Tajinder Hayer

Photography - Phil Fisk at Flock

Photography Assistance - Pedro Alvarez

Styling & Art Direction - Suzie Street

Styling Assistance - Olivia Grozotis

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Special thanks to: Bacchus Agency, Kate, Damian and Aaron at The View at The Shard & Premier Personal PR

With Netflix’s Department Q, Matthew Goode steps into his darkest role yet — and delivers a performance that’s as brooding and brilliant as the man himself.

There’s a particular kind of performance that only an actor like Matthew Goode can deliver — one that simmers quietly, full of emotional precision and unexpected edge. In Department Q, Netflix’s gripping new adaptation of the bestselling Nordic noir series, Goode leads as DCI Carl Mørck, a detective exiled to cold cases and haunted by trauma. It’s a brooding, intricately layered role — part psychological study, part slow-burn procedural — and it might just be Goode’s most arresting work to date. Elegant yet fractured, Mørck is a man on the edge, and Goode plays him with quiet fury and total command.

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Adapted from Jussi Adler-Olsen’s bestselling Danish crime novels, Department Q relocates the story to Edinburgh, giving the series a distinctly Scottish grit while retaining its Nordic noir spirit. Goode plays Mørck, a detective physically and psychologically scarred after a catastrophic case leaves his partner paralysed and himself nearly killed. Exiled to a forgotten corner of the police force—the titular Department Q—Mørck is assigned to cold cases, the kind that slip through the cracks but fester in silence. It’s a richly atmospheric drama that feels like True Detective and Slow Horses had a baby in a dark Scandinavian pub, and Goode is utterly magnetic at its centre.

“When Scott [Frank] phoned me and asked if I wanted to play Carl, I snapped his bloody arm off,” Goode says, laughing. “I couldn’t believe it. I knew I wasn’t everyone’s go-to for a role like this, but Scott knows I’m quite a dark bastard at heart.”

That darkness is key. Goode imbues Mørck with a weight of experience that feels lived-in, almost burdensome. Behind the suits and the stillness, there’s a tempest. Preparing for the role meant stepping into the minds of those who navigate the darkest corners of human behaviour. “I spoke to people who’d been on murder squads for over fifteen years,” he explains. “They told me horror stories. We owe them more than we realise. The whole show, really, is a kind of love letter to those people.”

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He also sought guidance from a friend who served in Iraq. “He carries a squash ball with him, a specific colour. Helps him regulate. I used that as part of Carl’s texture. His trauma isn’t just psychological—it’s physical, domestic, sensory.”

Goode is known for his range—the rakish romantic in Brideshead Revisited, the slick media mogul in The Offer, the grieving vampire in A Discovery of Witches, the dashing spy in The Imitation Game (a performance that helped earn the film a BAFTA win and Oscar nominations). But Department Q may be his most transformative turn yet. There’s a lived-in gravitas to Mørck, a performance that feels like it couldn’t have come from a less experienced actor.

“I’m just a journeyman, really,” he says, modestly. “I try and pick things that are a bit different each time and hope I get it right.”

Goode’s path to acting wasn’t mapped out. Raised in Devon by a geologist father and a nurse mother, he trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art after completing his studies at the University of Birmingham. “I took out a career development loan to go to drama school. I didn’t have a Plan B,” he shrugs. “It amazes me I’ve been working for twenty years.”

Despite his classical training, he’s refreshingly agnostic about how one becomes an actor. “You don’t have to go to acting school. Look at City of God. That cast was entirely untrained and phenomenal. Life experience makes better actors. I tell my daughter, wait until after university. Live a bit first.”

Department Q is helmed by Scott Frank, best known for The Queen’s Gambit, and designed by frequent Goode collaborator Grant Montgomery. The result is nothing short of breathtaking. “The design of the Department Q building is iconic,” Goode says. “It’s vividly bright, striking—helps when you walk onto a set like that. You’re halfway there already.”

Goode immersed himself deeply in the role, even creating soundscapes to capture the mood and sending them to Frank ahead of production. “He must have thought I was so annoying,” he laughs.

The darkness of the material was balanced by levity on set. Working alongside Shirley Henderson, Kelly Macdonald and Patrick Kennedy, the ensemble brought wit and warmth behind the scenes. “Some days were hard, but you need to laugh,” he says. “Patrick Kennedy in budgie smugglers on the beach—that image will never leave me. And it’s important to make newer cast and crew feel looked after. We had a safe space. You could scream on set if you needed to.”

Despite a career that spans historical epics, sci-fi thrillers, and prestige dramas, Goode remains endearingly humble. He reflects fondly on his time as Lord Snowdon in The Crown, a role that earned him an Emmy nomination. “Vanessa [Kirby] was chewing through actors at auditions. I thought, she must be a real force, and I was right. We had a ball. It was only a few episodes, but such fun. Matt [Smith] and Claire [Foy] were phenomenal.”

Goode speaks like a man who still sees acting as a privilege. “I feel like I’m just getting started,” he admits. “With acting, unlike sport, there’s no expiration date. That’s the wonderful thing. I’m just out of the genesis part of my career.”

If there is a thread that unites Goode’s many roles, it’s the sense of interior life he brings to each character. From the emotionally tormented Adrian Veidt in Watchmen to the emotionally unavailable but magnetic Henry Talbot in Downton Abbey, Goode excels at giving his characters moral texture. His DCI Carl Mørck is no exception.

“It’s not a strictly faithful adaptation,” he says of Department Q, “due to the transposition to Edinburgh. But it works. It’s beautiful, nuanced, dark—and also hilarious. If I take myself out of the equation, the actors in this are just doing phenomenal work. It might be my favourite company I’ve ever worked with.”

Goode doesn’t know what comes next—and that’s how he likes it. “The industry is precarious. It always is. I never had a Plan B, but I’m grateful every day I get to do this.”

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With Department Q, Matthew Goode proves there’s still much more to discover beneath his elegant surface — a depth, darkness, and emotional acuity that make him one of Britain’s most quietly formidable leading men. As DCI Mørck, he embodies a man undone and rebuilding, haunted but unflinching. It’s the kind of performance that lingers long after the credits roll, and a reminder that, two decades into his career, Matthew Goode is still sharpening his edge.

See Matthew Goode in Department Q on Netflix from 29 May.

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