Jay Hunt Talks Casting Idris Elba As BBC One’s First Black Lead With ‘Luther’ & Working At The Broadcaster: “It Is The Most Difficult Environment To Be Brave” — LFF
TV presenter Claudia Winkleman, now best known as the presenter of The Traitors, was the surprise host of the London Film Festival’s final industry forum talk this afternoon featuring Apple TV+ exec and BFI Chair Jay Hunt.
Winkleman moderated the session and quizzed Hunt on her decades-long career as a TV exec. Hunt — who now oversees Apple TV+’s commissioning in Europe — is the only UK TV commissioner to have run three channels, BBC One, Channel 4, Channel 5.
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Winkleman was particularly curious about Hunt’s time at the BBC and her decision to leave her role at Channel 5 after only nine months to return to the public broadcaster as controller of BBC One.
“I went from the bottom of the pile in terms of the terrestrial channels to being on BBC One and this extraordinary responsibility of being in control of a billion pounds of public money and the biggest channel in the UK,” Hunt said of the switch from Channel 5 to BBC One.
The Aussie native described her time running BBC One as a “huge privilege” but said the job’s visibility creates a unique strain on creativity.
“It’s probably the terrestrial channel where it’s most important to be creatively courageous and yet it is the most difficult environment to be brave because you can’t smuggle things onto BBC One,” Hunt said. “If you’re on BBC One you’re there for the nation to see.”
However, Hunt added that the channel’s cultural prominence allows execs to make important interventions into wider social and political issues that divide the nation.
“When we put him [Idris Elba] as the lead on Luther it was the first time there was a Black lead on BBC One and that’s just extraordinary,” she said. “So you can go into people’s homes and change the way they think about the country they live in.”
She added: “You have to be brave because doing so on a platform of that scale you can fundamentally shift the way we think about important issues around race, representation, and how communities are seen on screen.”
At Apple, Hunt is known for commissioning shows like Slow Horses, Bad Sisters, and Tiny World. Alongside her role at the streamer, she is also BFI Chair. She was officially appointed in January, replacing Tim Richards, CEO of Vue. She’d previously served on the BFI exec board, a role she told the LFF crowd she would never have applied to.
“I would have thought that sounds like a scary old thing to do,” she said adding that she was “approached and chased” to join the board.
Hunt praised the BFI throughout the talk, describing the organization as the “engine room” of what the UK produces in film and television.
“At LFF, opening night you have Blitz, the big Apple movie directed by Steve McQueen, who was supported by the BFI. Mike Leigh with Hard Truths on Monday night, another respected filmmaker on the global stage supported by the BFI,” she said.
“These are some of the great defining voices of this country that have been nurtured by the BFI.”
The London Film Festival ends on Sunday.
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