Jack McMullen got to play the kingpin’s son in the ​“scouse Sopranos”

Jack McMullen’s palms are sweating. Calling from his car in Liverpool – he’s back in his home city for the weekend to look after his dad’s dog – the actor is reeling from a stint on BBC Breakfast to discuss his new show, This City Is Ours.

​“Oh my God, I was terrified,” the 34-year-old says, wide-eyed. ​“Live and direct to the nation. Can you imagine? All I was thinking was don’t swear, don’t swear!” This is a far cry from what Jack’s character is like in This City, where he plays Jamie Phelan, the slick but menacing son of Liverpool drug trade kingpin Ronnie (Sean Bean). Jamie plots to usurp his dad’s close ally and would-be successor Michael (James Nelson-Joyce) for the organised crime family’s throne, which is thrown into the balance after a shipment of cocaine goes missing. So far, so Sopranos – This City also balances the gangsters’ sinister criminal enterprise and interpersonal relationships on a knife edge, as their romantic lives get thrown into the mix of this underworld operation.

​“James [Nelson-Joyce] and I, we’ve been best friends for years,” says Jack, who’s now based in London. ​“But this was a real ensemble piece, and I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do it, just from reading the first couple of pages.” Jack referred back to the Bryan Cranston Method – that is, deciding whether or not to take a job based on numerical scores. There’s the story, the script, the role, the director and the cast. If the total score adds up to at least 13, the decision is made: take the job. ​“This City just ticked all of those boxes,” Jack adds.

Jack was a ​“hyperactive kid” growing up. To help, his parents set up extracurricular activities for him – football, swimming, that kind of thing. Acting is the one that stuck. His first role was in local soap Brookside, which opened the door to the likes of Waterloo Road and in turn, a string of TV gigs: namely in Idris Elba’s thriller series Hijack in 2023. ​“I’ve been lucky enough to keep working!”

With our fingers crossed for a second season of This City, what could possibly be next for Jack? ​“I kind of look at it the other way around,” he says. ​“I’m excited by not knowing what’s coming next, and reading a script that is nothing like I’ve ever read before, or when a director works in a way that I’ve never thought of before. That’s kind of the buzz of it for me.”

What were some of your favourite moments from shooting This City Is Ours?

I think being in Spain, for a start, which was a great way for us all to bond as a group. But every episode’s got something – a stunt, a big sequence, shooting at people, car chases, even fucking line dancing. It’s got it all!

How did you get into Jamie’s shoes?

I think one of the great things about This City Is Ours, and I’ve not done much of this before, is that the scripts were still coming in as we were shooting it. That was quite difficult and unnerving at times, but the writer Stephen Butchard wanted to see what we were bringing to the table to then help inform where the story was going to go. So in terms of personal relationships and how they were going to develop, we didn’t know anything, really.

As an actor, what are some of your most important prepping rituals?

Music, definitely. The thing is that you spend a lot of time beforehand, while you’re preparing for a role, in your own head. You write stuff down, you’re thinking about backstory and setting, it’s obsessive, almost. Then when you get on set it’s the complete opposite: you have to actually be present. Music helps with that transition.

What have you learned about yourself in the process of making the show?

Trusting yourself, definitely. I think our job is to bring something that isn’t necessarily on the page. You can read and read and read, analyse and analyse some more. But the cinematographer, the director, the designers, us – all of ours jobs is to flesh that world out and find its nuances and make it as interesting as possible. I learned how to do that on This City Is Ours.

What did you watch when you were growing up?

I love the mob genre. I love The Sopranos and I’ve seen it multiple times. I was really into films as a kid because my parents loved them – going to Blockbuster was our routine on a Saturday. Goodfellas, Scorsese, that kind of thing. I love the Coen brothers and Shane Meadows, too.

People have been calling This City of Ours the scouse Sopranos. What do you make of that comparison?

It’s very flattering. Lots of people say that’s the greatest show ever made. I wouldn’t profess we’ve made something on that level, but to have it mentioned in the same sentence is brilliant.

You can watch This City Is Ours on BBC iPlayer now