[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Douglas Is Cancelled.]

It’s in the final episode of Douglas Is Cancelled, the U.K. satirical drama now streaming on BritBox, that we learn just what Douglas (Hugh Bonneville) said at a wedding — and yes, it was about his cohost, Madeline (Karen Gillan).

It’s during a mock interview ahead of the one Douglas is to sit for at the Hay Festival that the truth comes out. Though Douglas’ wife Sheila (Alex Kingston) wants to be the one to conduct it, Madeline insists she do it — and in doing so, gets Douglas to admit that he’s been telling people over the years that she got the job because she slept with Toby (Ben Miles), the producer. He’d left her in his hotel room the night she interviewed for the position, knowing what would happen. But what he didn’t know is that Madeline didn’t sleep with Toby. Rather, she walked into the bathroom, where he was waiting in the tub, threw his papers into the water, poured wine on him, and took photos, warning him not to mess with her.

What Douglas said doesn’t become public. But what does and leads to him resigning is a video of him telling his daughter (Madeleine Power) that he can’t tell the truth “because I work in television … the truth needs a little help now and then. Because between you and me, our audience wouldn’t understand the truth even if we had the guts to tell it or knew what it was in the first place.” Madeline, instead, does the interview at the Hay Festival.

Below, Bonneville discusses reuniting with Gillan and creator and writer Steven Moffat, unpacks that ending, and more.

What appealed to you about doing this show and this role?

Hugh Bonneville: Well, really a combination of factors. As always, it’s the script and Steven Moffatt is such a genius. It’s the best writing of good satire, which this sort of starts off to be reeling the audience in with comedy and then gradually twisting the knife. And so I think that, and a combination of the potential of working with Karen again. I did an episode of Doctor Who when she was in that many years ago, and we got on famously and I know what a rigorous and complete actor she is, and I just thought it was a no-brainer, really. Those two central roles are fantastic and the satellite characters are equally rich and vivid and it is really down to Steven’s writing.

Yeah, I was going to say talk about reuniting with Karen and Steven because this is very different from that Doctor Who episode.

Yeah, you could say that. No, really. I think as Steven himself says, to be able to take a pot shot at current relevant zeitgeisty themes in one arena was too good to resist. And he wrote it really as a stage play about five, six years ago, and then actually thought it would probably work better on TV. And so that’s why it’s got those long, sustained set piece scenes which have actually come from a sort of theater roots, if you like. So they were like doing one-act plays, particularly Episode[s] 3 and 4, and 2 to an extent. So they’re sustained pieces of writing, which again is delicious for an actor to get their teeth into.

Had you known what Douglas had said and his entire arc from the beginning, was that something that you talked to Steven about before you read the scripts, or was it something you found out in the scripts?

Something I found out in the scripts, and it was a conversation I had with Steven quite early on, saying, how much does Douglas know? How much does he remember? Was he drunk? How drunk was he when he made this supposedly off-the-cuff remark that went down in certain quarters like a lead balloon and is he lying? Is he telling the truth? And really the ambiguity of that was really quite important, that I think as we gradually discover, he can’t actually remember what he said and then maybe when the truth is squeezed out of him or when the evidence is laid before him, it’s a shock even to himself really. But the actual tweet, or the content or the matter to which it’s referring, almost becomes irrelevant by the end. It’s about much more than that as we discover in Episode 3. The darkening tones that really creep in from end of Episode 2 onwards I think are really worth sticking with. And I think audiences have been surprised around the world that what they thought was a light, fluffy comedy turns into something that actually makes them reflect on their own views on workplace activities and cancel culture and all that sort of thing.

So how do you think Douglas is doing at the end of the series? Because we don’t see him after that rehearsal interview. We only hear that he resigned, his wife and daughter were there for the entire thing. They were behind him but then he admits what he said.

Well, I think the implication is that he’s certainly damaged, hopefully not irreparably, but he certainly damaged the relationship with his daughter. I think the relationship with his wife sustains because she’s a tabloid news editor. She invents stuff anyway about the way people behave. So I think it’s really the relationship with his daughter is the thing that I came away with that felt most changed, if you like. And I think his parental position has been damaged and were we to see what happened next, I think it would be a lot of awful lot of work needed from Douglas to try and repair that relationship.

You and Alex together as Douglas and Sheila were so good.

Well, Alex and I seem to work together about every three years since we met when we were 17 at the National Youth Theater. And we have a very easy and fun dynamic, and it’s always a pleasure working opposite her. We have a great shorthand and, as I say, a great shared history. So I adored working with her. And then Simon Russell Beale, who is a legend in Britain playing Bentley, my agent, and Ben Miles, who is I think one of the greatest actors of our generation in the U.K., playing my boss. We were surrounded by fantastic actors and at the heart of it, Karen, who is such a machine in terms of her work dynamic and her work ethic. She really showed me up with her efficiency and preparedness and made me raise my game. So I felt, felt very humbled to be working with her again.

Going back to what you were saying about how Steven originally wrote this as a play, and you really feel that in the rehearsal interview. It feels like a two-hander between you and Karen, even though there are objections from Toby and Sheila. Talk about filming that.

That was probably the toughest patch. And again, hats off to Karen because she filmed all of Episode 3 and all of Episode 4 in one great big chunk. We were filming in the winter, so we’d arrive in the dark, we’d film in the dark, the dark rehearsal room and then leave in the dark. So it was a couple of really intense weeks, I have to say, of absolutely no vitamin D. And it was really tough. And I think the way that Ben, our wonderful director Ben Palmer, directed it. He’s a very, very rigorous director. I’ve worked with him before and he’s really precise, and his insistence on rhythm and speed and accuracy is very heartening. And I’m sure Steven as producer and writer would’ve been thrilled with that. But it makes for a very intense filming process because those scenes are, particularly the scenes in Episodes 3 and 4, really intense and the interview is deeply uncomfortable rising to this pitch at the end. So it was like, as I say, doing a one-act play several times a day and was very intense from that point of view. And the results I was very proud of. I think the team’s work is fantastic on it and it’s very uncomfortable viewing.

At the end of the rehearsal interview, when Madeline’s leaving and she tells Douglas what he meant to her watching him grow when she was growing up and everything, and he starts to say, what seems like, I’m sorry to her, was he going to say he was sorry?

Yes, I suspect he was, because I think only in the moment of being faced with his own actions, does he really confront what he did. I mean, this is why I think it resonates so painfully because I think many people, male and female, will be in positions where they’ve turned a blind eye to someone who’s in authority or who’s perceived to be in authority or is using their position in such a way that they feel at the time is nothing to do with them. But I think in this culture, in today’s society, we are better at speaking up and saying, that’s not right. That’s not the right behavior in the workplace or indeed any environment. And I think it highlights, Douglas represents a generation that sort of just let things go and that, oh, it’s always been like this. And in his case is sort of just accepting of the casting couch. And obviously, it skewers that, particularly the Episode 3 skewers the Harvey Weinstein mentality. And I think it calls it out in a very, thankfully, initially in a comedic way, but then in a very dark and serious way asks you, what would you do in this situation? Have you got the wherewithal to do the right thing? And I think Douglas didn’t at the time, and he regrets it hugely.

Do you think he regrets doing that rehearsal interview? Because the video that comes out isn’t about what he said isn’t about the story.

Absolutely. Yes. The irony is, or the twist is that, yeah, he’s not actually canceled for the reason we think he’s going to be canceled. He’s canceled because he denigrates the nature of news and the nature of TV and the sort of fakeness of TV and he insults the audience, which is the worst thing you can do.

This show does tackle tough and important topics, but what was the most fun scene to film?

I think the scenes in the office, which are quite farcical in Episode 2, they were hard long days again. But when you’ve got actors, as I say, of the caliber of not only Karen, but also Simon Russell Beale and Ben Miles, the way that farcical element escalates, culminating in Madeline getting her own way and saying that she is going to run this mock interview with Douglas, I think is, it is A, wonderful writing, but B, it’s a great comedic setup and payoffs. And I think the gags with the fact that she’s very tactile with Douglas and he doesn’t know how to read that and doesn’t know how to play it and is clumsy with it. I think it’s brilliantly observed about the dynamics between people in the workplace, particularly when one of them is an older person who mistakenly thinks there may be some misconstrued flirtation going on. It works on many levels, and that was a lot of fun to play, although, as I say, hard work.

Douglas Is Cancelled, Streaming Now, BritBox