It's not at all black-and-white, and that's why the film is so shadowy.”

But both he and Charles are elusive figures – it's not clear whose side they're on.

You have to feel he's a human being with a family. It's important that you feel for Viktor and his predicament. “I like the idea that you don't know who he is. Scott particularly enjoyed playing the ambiguity of Viktor's character. Scott says: “Characters in those days called from phone boxes – whoever does that now? The film fits the era. The film convincingly conjures up the drabness of the 1970s, all three-day weeks, petrol rationing and power cuts. Its tagline could well have been: “Trust no one.” Deliberately shot in Stygian gloom, Legacy captures the murky world of the secret services where cynicism and duplicity are part of the job description. However, Victor adroitly turns the tables on Charles with a shocking revelation about the British spy's family.

In this film, set at the height of the conflict between the UK and the USSR in 1974, which goes out on Thursday 28 November, Scott plays Viktor Koslov, a KGB spy.Ĭharles Thoroughgood (Charlie Cox), a trainee MI6 agent, tries to reconnect with Viktor, an old friend from their Oxford days, in an attempt to “turn” him. An adaptation by Paula Milne of Alan Judd's bestselling 2001 espionage novel, this is an absorbing contribution to the BBC's “Cold War” season. The next legacy of the “Sherlock Effect” is that Scott is starring in a one-off BBC2 drama entitled Legacy.

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