Actor David Tennant has hailed the widow of poisoned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko as a hero.
The Doctor Who star met Marina as he prepared to play her assassinated husband in ITV drama Litvinenko.
And the 51-year-old – who re-created the hospital image of the ex-Federal Security Service officer that shocked the world – said his fate was like “something from a James Bond film”.
He said: “I think she became the motivation for telling this story. Marina is a remarkable human. She’s the hero of this in many ways. When you meet her all you get is this extraordinary woman who just wants to shout about this as loudly as she can for the rest of her life.”
Alexander, known as Sasha, died in agony in hospital in November 2006, aged 43, after two Kremlin agents poisoned his drink with the radioactive isotope Polonium-210 during a meeting in a hotel.
The former Federal Security Service officer had been an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, whom he accused of ordering his murder.
He was working for British intelligence after fleeing to London, where he and Marina assumed new identities and set up home with son Anatoly. Marina is still fighting for justice.
Tennant said: “Marina has so fearlessly devoted her life to making sure his death does not go for nothing. Marina continues to talk, bang on these doors and tell the world what happened. This was not the life she ever imagined or signed up for. And yet there is a bravery to her. Having seen what happened to her husband she must be, on some level, nervous for herself.
“Marina is a woman whose life has been so extraordinarily shaped by this tragedy. She has such an energy to her and such a love for Sasha that continues to propel her through.”
In 2016, a UK public inquiry, headed by former High Court judge Sir Robert Owen, said Russians Dmitri Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi deliberately poisoned Sasha by putting Polonium-210 in his drink at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair.
The inquiry said the use of the substance – which could only have come from a nuclear reactor – was a “strong indicator” of state involvement and that the two men had “probably” been acting under orders from Putin.
The European Court of Human Rights also ruled last year that Russia was responsible for Sasha’s killing.
The Kremlin has always denied any involvement and refused to comply with international arrest warrants for Lugovoi and Kovtun, who reportedly died of Covid in Moscow this year.
Broadchurch actor Tennant said: “One of the first things we did was re-create the image of him in the hospital bed, the image that went all around the world. That involved a lot of very skilled people. It took several hours.”
The drama is on streaming service ITVX from December 15 and is likely to air on ITV’s main terrestrial channel later.
Tennant added: “Purely on a personal level, it’s something I’m very proud to have done.
“I feel like we gave it our best shot and we are, hopefully, honouring the memory of Sasha and the life’s work of Marina. That’s what we set out to do.”
