(Photo: BBC America)
Since he launched his acting career in the mid-1990s, Stephen Mangan has built up an impressive résumé. You may know him as the arrogant anaesthetist Guy Secretan in cult British sitcom Green Wing, conflicted screenwriter Sean Lincoln in Episodes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the historical drama series Houdini & Doyle. He's also a witty presence on various U.K. comedy panel shows and hosts the popular Artist of the Year contest on British network Sky Arts.
In season three of BBC America's The Split, Abi Morgan's brilliant drama series about divorce lawyers who are also navigating their own divorce, he plays professionally successful but personally stressed barrister Nathan Stern. "He's sort of all over the place," says Mangan. "He's split from Hannah [Nicola Walker] and met somebody else, so he's trying to juggle this new relationship with the fallout from the divorce. He doesn't really know what's going on, which is a joy for an actor! I don't like playing people who know what they're doing. It's more fun to play people who are completely lost and a mess."
Here, Mangan talks about what it's like to work on a show that really isn't afraid to dig deep emotionally.
This season of The Split features some very intense emotional scenes. Were they super-draining to shoot?
It can be very cathartic, actually, because you sort of purge yourself of a lot of that stuff. It can feel a bit like after the thunderstorm has gone and the air's a bit fresher. You feel unburdened emotionally: like it was too hot and humid before, and you needed that storm to clear the air. But there's no question they're really interesting and tricky scenes to film because the audience is so close to you. In a film or on TV, they're right there: inches away from your face. And human beings are innately primed to suss out B.S., so they can tell when you're faking it badly. 
It must have helped to have the brilliant Nicola Walker as your scene partner.
It's always a great feeling when you're surprised by another actor. I was working with a lot of very talented people on The Split, but Nicola and I especially had some very emotional scenes together. We've known each other for a long time – we were at college together – so there was already an understanding and a relationship there. Sometimes when you're playing one half of a married couple, you meet your co-star and go straight into it. The director's like: "Stephen, this is Sarah, you've been married for 20 years and now you're about to divorce. Action!" But Nicola and I know each other very well, so I could relax a bit because she's such a good actress and I trusted her.

This season of The Split became real appointment viewing in the U.K. when it aired in April and May. Like, people were talking about each episode after it went out. Why do you think that was?
I think it helped that the second season went out in lockdown, when there were more people at home watching TV. But also, I think each season has got better and better. Abi has been through hell and back in her own life in the last few years. I'm not talking out of school here; she's written a book about it [This Is Not a Pity Memoir]. I think the pain she has gone through has given her writing even more compassion and humanity and awareness of how hard it can be just to get through. What I love about The Split is that all the characters are complex. What I hear a lot about my character is that people want to hug him one minute, then slap him the next. And a lot of people tell me how much The Split resonates with things in their own lives and really makes them cry.
You've done so many different things in your career. When you're out at a coffee shop, and a fan approaches you, can you guess what they're going to ask you about?
You sort of can. Because The Split was shown in the U.K. so recently and really caught the public's imagination here, it's overwhelmingly the thing that people want to talk about. But, occasionally people do surprise you. I did a show on Broadway over 10 years ago [The Norman Conquests] and yesterday someone came up to me to say they'd seen it about 15 times. They started quoting lines from the show at me, which was definitely a surprise.
Do many people ask you about Episodes?
Oh yes, Episodes gets a lot of love. And people still ask about Green Wing and my fleeting appearance in I'm Alan Partridge [from 2002]. Episodes was such a joyous thing to do, and because of the nature of television now, where people are constantly discovering shows [on streaming platforms] that they may have missed at the time, I think a whole new audience is discovering it now. They're like: "How did I not know about this show at the time? It's so funny!"
The Split airs Mondays at 11pm EST on BBC America and is available for streaming via Sundance Now and AMC+.
Are you caught up on The Split? What do you think so far!?