Speaking at Canneseries, Bad Wolf founder Jane Tranter — whose credits include hits from “Doctor Who” to “Succession” — recalled how her creative collaboration turned friendship with late “Sopranos” star James Gandolfini changed her career. Tranter met the actor while working on their passion project “The Night Of,” which Gandolfini was supposed to star on before his untimely death in 2013. The series pilot would become the last thing the actor ever filmed, with his role later taken over by John Turturro.
“He was very uncomfortable and discombobulated by LA, so we were uncomfortable and discombobulated together,” remembered the executive, who formed a friendship with Gandolfini while leading BBC Worldwide Productions and Adjacent Productions in Los Angeles. Tranter took the job after eight years as Head of Fiction for the BBC in the U.K., and would stay in L.A. for another eight years, where she worked on projects such as “Dancing With the Stars” and “Da Vinci’s Demons.”
“James explained all sorts of things to me and made me feel for the first time that I had someone who was on my side,” she continued. “That was a real turning point for me. Once I got to know him and got locked into ‘The Night Of,’ there was no way I was going anywhere until that show was done.”
The friendship would come to have an even greater impact on Tranter’s professional life. After Gandolfini’s passing, the producer inherited the crews he worked with on “The Sopranos,” going on to learn more in-depth about the structure and history of New York crews. What she learned would come to directly influence the creation of Bad Wolf.
‘The Night Of’ courtesy of HBO
“Even after Jim had passed, his crew came and worked with us on ‘The Night Of,’” she said. “I got to know them, and they were long-standing New York crews whose fathers and grandfathers had worked the same jobs. These were generational, well-paid jobs that meant you didn’t have to leave New York to earn. I thought that was amazing and thought: what if I set up a company with a studio where we can create this level of jobs?”
Tranter then left Los Angeles and set up Bad Wolf with Welsh television producer Julie Gardner, at first setting up shop in Swansea but swiftly relocating to Cardiff, where they now have seven soundstages and have filmed shows such as “Industry” and “His Dark Materials.”
“I trusted enough, particularly through ‘Da Vinci’s Demons,’ that we would be able to make high-end television drama from Wales,” added the executive. “I didn’t know if we would be able to get actors and directors to come, but we know that what actors like more than anything else is a really, really good script. And if I can provide a really good script, really good characters, and make sure they’re well looked after when they’re there, then all will be well. And in fact, that happened.”
Bad Wolf, which has just turned 10, built a seventh stage and front lot last year and is the “only studio anywhere in the world that has been kitted out by producers to produce their shows in.” “We know it’s a safe environment in every way, and it drives some of the creative strategy of what we do,” said Tranter. “We like studio-based work, you know, we look for things to put in the studio.”
Of course, fostering a sustainable, driving industry heavily depends on talent development and availability, and the producer is particularly proud of having a classroom within the Bad Wolf studios to tend to this very need. “We can have not just university students in the studio to learn, but school children. We now take them as young as seven. They go into the studio and get a sense of how television is made. I feel it’s very important in an area like Wales, where our diversity is socioeconomic and television is a very good supplier of jobs.”
‘Industry’ courtesy of HBO
Speaking of looking ahead, Tranter praised her partnership with British playwright Peter Straughan, who is currently working with Bad Wolf on an adaptation of Philip Kerr’s bestselling book series “Berlin Noir” for Apple TV+. “Not only is he the nicest man in the world, but one of the very best writers I’ve ever had the privilege of working with,” she said.
“We are always looking for good scripts and brilliant writers,” she added. “We’re not afraid of fantasy, not afraid of period. At a time when period dramas are meant to be impossible to fund, we find ourselves making three of them.”
Tranter concluded her conversation by saying that her being in Cannes with the Bad Wolf team is a “declaration of intent” that they believe “new partnerships need to be found.” “Budgets aren’t necessarily going to be the same, and funding models aren’t necessarily going to be the same, but that’s a challenge for all of us. Producers and writers are doing this job because we like a challenge and yes, it’s tougher, but really good things are still being made for good budgets.”
