The Rig is a horror thriller series arriving on Amazon Prime Video in early 2023. It's directed by John Strickland (Bodyguard, Line Of Duty) and follows the crew on the fictional Kinloch Bravo oil rig stationed off the Scottish coast on the dangerous waters of the North Sea. When the group of workers is due to return to the mainland, an eerie fog descends, and a mysterious force begins to take hold as the team finds themselves suddenly cut off from all communication with the outside world. Then all sorts of unimagined terrors begin to hit the rig.
As the crew tries to discover what’s driving this unknown force, a huge accident forces them into considering who they can really trust. Bonds are broken, allegiances formed and generational fault lines are exposed. The crew of the Kinloch Bravo is driven to the limits of both their loyalties and endurance.
Here's everything you need to know about The Rig on Prime Video...
The Rig release date...
All six episodes of The Rig will be launched on Friday January 6 2023 exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in over 240 countries.
Is there a trailer for The Rig?
Yes a trailer has now been released for The Rig which shows how the terrifying events on the Kinloch Bravo oil rig begin to engulf the crew. Take a look below.
The Rig cast — who’s starring in the oil rig horror?
Casting for The Rig is very strong. The action on Kinloch Bravo oil rig features Line of Duty star Martin Compston playing Communications Officer Fulmer Hamilton (pictured above and below). Game of Thrones actor Iain Glen plays Magnus MacMillan who is Offshore Installation Manager of the rig and leader of the crew.
For Martin Compston, it also means teaming up with his Line Of Duty co-star from season 5, Rochenda Sandall, who plays the rig's medic Cat Braithwaite, while another Game Of Thrones star Owen Teale plays the rig's Head Driller, Lars Hutton.
Other well-known stars include Emun Elliot as rig mechanic Leck Longman, Bridgerton's Richard Pepple as crew boss Grant Dunlin, Mark Bonnar playing foreman Alwyn Evans (see first look picture above), Abraham Popoola is crane driver Easter Ayodeji, Des star Stuart McQuarrie is the Head Chef Colin Murchison and Molly Vevers is roustabout Heather Shaw. Schitt's Creek star Emily Hampshire plays rig worker Rose Mason, while Calvin Demba (The Golden Circle) and Abraham Popoola play other rig workers Baz and Easter Ayodeji (see all three pictured below).
Mark Addy (White House Farm, Game of Thrones, The Full Monty) also joins the crew of the Kinloch Bravo oil rig as David Coake, head of Pictor Energy's Research & Expansion Division, and who knows more than most about the real danger the crew face…
See some of the main cast in action in the first look pictures of The Rig above and below plus Martin Compston and Emily Hampshire talking about their roles... Schitt’s Creek actor Emily reveals that she now loves the drink, Irn Bru, thanks to her Scottish co-star Martin.
Interview: Martin Compston on filming The Rig
What can you tell us about your character?
Martin says: "On an oil rig, to an extent, there are two worlds – there’s the management, but they’re in the dry and the warm, and then there’s the guys outside, covered in oil and getting their hands dirty, so there’s a lot of tension. Fulmer sort of straddles both worlds. He’s the head of communications, so he’s outside now and again on the mast, fixing things, but he’s indoors a lot of the time, so he’s caught between both. He’s also in a relationship with Emily Hampshire’s character, Rose Mason, who is seen as a company woman and is not the most well-liked figure on the rig. The others see her as pushing quotas and cost-cutting, all that kind of thing, so they think he’s the teacher’s pet."
Was it a very physical role for you?
Martin says: "Yeah, which was one of the selling points for me. I like a bit of rough and tumble. Throughout the series, there are two or three pinnacle action moments and Fulmer gets to be at the heart of one of them. He’s just getting his head down and getting on with his job and then he’s in these situations. That’s interesting to play because it’s not his natural habitat – being the brave one and risking life and limb. The reasons he’s put in those situations are quite wild, but it’s wonderful to play."
How important is the oil rig setting?
Martin says: "An oil rig itself, before you add in all the supernatural elements and the gloom, is quite an intense place. We had this incredible production design, based on the working units of the rig. When you went to certain places on the rig, you went through hatches, so there’s tension in that already, and it did feel quite an ominous place to be filming. One of the other great things about setting it on an oil rig is if you don’t like somebody, you’re going to see them a lot. There’s no real hiding on an oil rig, so, off the bat, it’s a fantastic set for a drama."
Your father worked on oil rigs, is that one of the reasons you signed up for this show?
Martin says: "It was one of the reasons. John Strickland, who directed and produced the series, has been a great collaborator of mine. I worked with John on [hit BBC thriller] Line of Duty and we also did [ITV1’s 2016 true-crime drama] In Plain Sight together.
"My dad came down for a set visit and we got onto talking about oil rigs. He was talking about how he worked offshore and, then, a couple of years later, John gave me a call and said, ‘Look, I’m doing this thing on an oil rig and I remember from talking to your dad that you’ve got a bit of experience and know a bit about that world.’ But I wasn’t expecting it to be a supernatural thriller!"
Is there anything you would compare the series to?
Martin says: "I’ve never read anything like it. It was very unique and original to me. So from not reading anything like it, I won’t have seen anything like it. Somebody might point out influences or visual references around it they’ve found, but, for me, in a world of remakes, prequels and sequels, it feels very original and very standalone."
There are quite a few fellow Line of Duty cast members in this show…
Martin says: "That was a wonderful thing. We had Owen Teale, Mark Bonnar, Rochenda Sandall as well as John Strickland directing. That kind of thing happens when you build good relationships and when things are successful – they are successful for a reason. It was wonderful working with all those guys again because we’ve such heartening memories of Line of Duty."
Given the sense of fear in this, what scares you in real life?
Martin says: "There’s nothing really. It’s funny because my wife [American actor Tianna Chanel Flynn] is terrified of spiders so I spend my life following her around picking them up. Weirdly, I’m not great with heights but I kind of like bungee diving and skydiving because of that. I get a kick out of being scared a little bit, I like the adrenaline that comes with it, which is bizarre!"
Where The Rig is filmed? The locations revealed...
The Rig will be the first Amazon Original Series filmed exclusively in Scotland. Filming will take place on a Scottish oil rig and also at FirstStage Studios, a new studio complex established at Leith docks by BAFTA-winning producer Bob Last and Jason Connery, son of the late James Bond star Sean Connery. The studio buildings in Edinburgh were once the home of engineering firm VA Tech. In 2017 they were used to make Disney/Marvel's blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War.
See our first look pictures with The Rig cast members Emily Hampshire and Martin Compston at the Leith studios.
What else do we know about The Rig?
The thriller has been created by new writer David Macpherson and is produced by Wild Mercury Productions (Troy: Fall Of A City, Humans).
Growing up near Alness on the Cromarty Firth, David would often watch on in wonder at the oil rigs that loomed high above the water, watching as these mighty beasts were towed into the bay for repair.
'Oil rigs and that world always been a part of my life growing up,' Macpherson recently told The Herald. “When they are in getting repaired at Invergordon, they tower over the town and you see them wherever you are.
'My dad used to build rigs at the yard in Nigg and then when we were a bit older, he started working offshore. He would always come back with lots of stories about all the strange things that happened out there.
'That world has fascinated me because it is such a big part of Scotland’s story,” he continues. “There’s so much tied up in it, yet it is also still a very hidden world. Unless you actually work out there, it is very hard to imagine what it is really like.
'Even with my dad and lots of my friends working offshore, having heard all the stories, it is nothing compared to being there and up close.'
'I always wanted a strong Scottish element to the cast,” he adds. 'Someone said to me yesterday: ‘It’s like we have got the Scottish Avengers’. The offshore world is like a microcosm of the whole country and we wanted to reflect that as well. Oil is an international business so it was great to get [the Canadian actor] Emily Hampshire on board.'
Derek Wax, Managing Director of Wild Mercury says: “The Rig is a character-driven, epic thriller, full of heart-grabbing action and bold, original ideas. David Macpherson captures life on a North Sea oil rig with extraordinary authenticity."
“The Rig is a brilliant story, expertly told, in the most dramatic of settings,” says Georgia Brown, Director of European Amazon Originals for Prime Video. “It asks searching questions about nature and the environment, about what it takes to survive and to be human.”
Daisy Mount, Development Executive for UK Scripted Originals, spoke to the Edinburgh International TV Festival 2022 when she said: "We are looking for shows that are very entertainment first, we're looking for shows that are bold and unique and feel very specific to Prime Video, that you could only find on a streamer like ours. And The Rig really delivers in that respect, but also what we really challenge ourselves on is shows that don't compromise on character and emotional heart and I think what David Macpherson, the writer, has done here really delivers on that."
The Rig — behind the scenes
Amazon Prime has hired a pair of Aberdeen oil companies to help supply the set. Henk Kombrink, director of NSC in Aberdeen, recently got a call from the studio about helping to furnish the set. “They just Googled us”, he said. “A guy organizing all the props for filming made a few phone calls and, in the end, I got the gist of what it was for. We thought, oh this is all very secretive, but then he was quite open about it.”
NSC primarily supplies geological materials to businesses and academic institutions around the world, is now providing 17 meters of authentic core for the set of The Rig, along with specialized maps. Henk Kombrink says: “It is really nice to see that this is really broadening our horizons in terms of what we provide and this is definitely the first time a core will be featuring in a drama series like this.”
Other films and TV dramas set on oil rigs, or in the North Sea...
The claustrophobic and isolated settings of oil rigs have provided dramatic backdrops for several thrillers over the years. The 2016 film Deepwater Horizon starred Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell and was based on tragic real-life events when an oil rig exploded in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. There was also Sector 7 (2011) in which members of a crew were brutally mutilated by an attacking sea creature plus other high-octane thrillers The Thing Below (2010) and The Rig (2010) starring William Forsythe.
British viewers may also remember the 1980s series Triangle on BBC1 starring Larry Lamb and Kate O’Mara set aboard a North Sea ferry. The soap-opera style drama, filmed onboard a real ferry, ran for three series between 1981 and 1983 but became the butt of jokes thanks to its stilted dialogue, clichéd relationships and the ongoing filming challenges caused by the inclement weather at sea.
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