The specs look familiar – but then up-and-coming Joe Cole is re-creating a spy role made famous by Sir Michael Caine.
The Peaky Blinders star plays working class secret agent Harry Palmer in ITV ’s mini-series adaptation of Cold War thriller The Ipcress File.
The 1965 film of the same name launched Caine to stardom – and 33-year-old Cole’s mentors reckon it could take him to the next level too.
Paul Roseby, CEO and artistic director of the National Youth Theatre, said: “I think Joe is as versatile as Sir Michael Caine but he has got a very different energy. There’s an inner naughtiness and a spark about him, and as soon as he walks through the door, you notice him. There was a real excitement about Joe from the first time he auditioned.
“He had this incredible ability to be raw, on the edge – you felt there was a calm danger about him.”
The road to fame was a little rocky for Joe, raised with four brothers in Kingston, South West London. He bombed his A-Levels and went off the rails.
Joe revealed: “I never thought I was gonna be an actor. I had a bit of a bad break-up, I didn’t get into university, I felt very sorry for myself.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I did. I got arrested. I was just getting up to nonsense, really.”
Joe was a carpet salesman before pursuing his acting dream, landing a place at the NYT. He had parts on The Bill and Holby City before signing up to play gangster John Shelby in four series of Peaky Blinders. Major roles in Gangs of London and Black Mirror, earning a BAFTA nomination, followed.
But The Ipcress File, co-starring Lucy Boynton, 28, could be a watershed moment.
Another teacher, Rikki Beadle-Blair, said: “Joe had it from day one. That stillness, that coiled dynamism, that focus. Joe is a thrill in human form.”
