‘A Murder at the End of the World’: Clive Owen Talks ‘Obsessive’ Nature of Andy’s Relationships

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for A Murder at the End of the World Episode 6 “Crime Seen.”]

Darby’s (Emma Corrin) finally slowly getting answers on A Murder at the End of the World.

The latest episode’s reveals include the fact that Lee (Brit Marling) has been trying to get herself and Zoomer (Kellan Tetlow) away from Andy (Clive Owen) — again. Her first attempt failed. But it’s not easy, because the reclusive billionaire is obsessed with their son and controlling every aspect of his life. So, Lee turned to Bill (Harris Dickinson), who brought in Rohan (Javed Khan), and then she went to David (Raúl Esparza), Andy’s second-in-command and the last person he’d expect. But by the end of the episode, Andy knows exactly what they were up to.

Below, Owen takes a look at Andy’s relationships with the key people in his life. Can he trust any of them?

Lee details for Darby Andy’s obsession with Zoomer and maintaining control over everything in his life and her failed attempt to escape. But how does Andy see what he’s doing?

Clive Owen: Yeah, I think he’s got very obsessed by it. I think he’s extremely powerful, and this is a part of his life that he’s desperate to keep a hold of and maintain some kind of power, and he’s poured an unnaturally lot into him, and he’s very paranoid about what could possibly happen. So I think he’s got very obsessive about it.

How does Andy feel about Lee? At that point, it doesn’t seem like there’s much love, but how does he see it? 

I think that’s a very complicated relationship. I think he does love her but at the same time is very paranoid about what she could possibly do and feels threatened because he’s let her get close. So it’s a very strange, weird, messed up kind of love, really. Similar to Zoomer, there’s something obsessive about the relationship.

She’s the one who could take everything away from him.

Exactly.

What does Andy think of Darby? We’ve seen him try to get her to leave, then have her question some of the others in front of him. Is it a “keep your enemies close” situation?

I don’t think it is just that. That is certainly part of it, but I think he realizes quite early on that she’s very, very smart, and she could be very helpful to him. So I think that he’s very, very wary of the potential of what she could do, but I think that they certainly passed through a phase where he feels that she could be helpful to him. But he’s generally pretty paranoid.

Eric Liebowitz/FX

Episode 6 ends with Andy bringing a beaten David to Darby, Lee, and Oliver (Ryan J. Haddad), and David is supposed to be Andy’s number 2. So while at that point he figured out that David was helping Lee, how much did Andy trust David before that?

I think he did. But similarly to how we’ve discussed the other two, I think that he’s one of those extremely powerful people. He’s always paranoid about what people could potentially do to him. And I think that tracks probably very true of people with enormous power: They’re always worried about who could possibly take that away from them or whether they can totally trust [anyone]. And I think that he’s, for a while, beginning to be suspicious, but he’s getting paranoid of everyone around him.

Because of all that — the paranoia, who he is — is there anyone that he can trust completely? Zoomer?

I think he would think he could. Yeah, I think he certainly thinks he could. I think that’s why that’s such an obsessive relationship, because he’s poured so much into it and he feels that Zoomer’s potentially the only one that wouldn’t double-cross him.

What about the relationship between Andy and Ray (Edoardo Ballerini)? Ray is his creation, but you never know…

For sure. Yeah, I think that the thing about AI is that we are currently in a climate where people are getting very worried about the potential of it, and at what point everything that you feed into AI, when it starts to come back and become independent of you. That’s a worrying thing. He’s developed him, and already it feels like there are sort of threats around him, even though he’s his creation. But it’s a dangerous one.

And of course there’s the murder mystery. What makes Andy the perfect suspect to be the killer?

I hope he’s not. [Laughs] No, I think that they’ve done such a great job. This is so unlike any murder mystery. They’ve taken a very popular genre that people love and really reinvented it for a modern audience. And I think that Emma’s character is unlike any sort of lead character in one of these mysteries that I’ve ever seen. [Darby] feels particularly fresh regarding the world we live in now.

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But why should people think Andy is the killer, and why shouldn’t people think he is?

I think that they shouldn’t. He’s got so much to lose. I don’t know, really, why they would think either way. I think that’s the good thing about a murder mystery. You’ve got to look around and make your decisions as things develop. You’ve got to make those decisions for yourself about who you think might have done it or be doing it.

Is Andy yet regretting bringing this group of people together, or as long as he and Zoomer are alive, it doesn’t matter to him what happens?

Yeah, I don’t think he regrets bringing this group of people together. He obviously is regretting things and how they are developing, but no, I think that at the beginning, he has his reasons for bringing these people, and it’s something that he’s done quite regularly, and he couldn’t predict it would go down this road.

At this point, heading into the finale, does Andy still think that his retreat and his plans for the area can still be a success?

I think so. Yeah, I think people like him that are rich and very successful always think that, even when they are cornered and things are looking difficult, there’ll be a way through it, and they’ll come good. That’s the sort of, I suppose, seduction of power and money really, is that you start to think that you can’t fail.

What can you preview about the finale? And what was your reaction to learning who the killer is?

I obviously knew when I took the part. I had lots of long talks with Brit and Zal [Batmanglij], so I knew where the thing was gonna head. But I think it’s a very cool idea, and I love where the whole thing ends up.

What did you enjoy most about filming the series? It’s such a perfect location for a murder mystery.

Yeah, it was. Iceland was really, really something. I’d never been. And I was really, really taken with it. It’s pretty epic. It’s one of the most special environments I think certainly I’ve ever worked in, but also been to, and it’s a place that I would visit again, so that was really special. But the whole shoot, the set that was built for the inside of the retreat place as well was really beautifully put together. Honestly, it’s one of those sets that, as you’re walking around, it was so substantial that it was as beautiful to the eye as it is to the camera.

A Murder at the End of the World, Finale, Tuesday, December 19, Hulu