Gangs of London might have started out as your husband’s kinda watch, but it’s certainly one that ended up on our radar. Yep, it’s violent and there are many (many) cushion grabbing moments, but the cinematography of not just London but those fight scenes has earned it a couple of BAFTA’s and countless noms. Throw in an unbelievable, weblike plot, deception, sooo many “Oh no they didn’t” moments, an unbelievable cast (Sopé Dìrísù, Michelle Fairley, Joe Cole, Lucian Msamati, Narges Rashidi, Orli Shuka to name a few), with characters you can’t help but like despite their dastardly ways, and GoL is one helluva watch.

To amp up the excitement levels, the trigger-happy series is back with a bang for a third season (all eight episodes are available to watch now) with a new director, Kim Hong-Sun, who has described the show as a blood opera (wowza), and plenty of new cast members to shake things up. Among them – trained martial artist and all-round action man, Andrew Koji.

No stranger to a fight scene, you may recognise Andrew from Warrior, Bullet Train and most recently Netflix’s Black Doves. We caught up with Andrew to see how he fared in the brutal GoL world. Over to you, Andrew…

Congratulations on surviving season three – not everyone makes it out of GoL alive. Were you aware of the show before you were cast?

Fairly aware. It’s such a groundbreaking show, especially season one with Gareth Evans who spearheaded the whole thing and created this world – this gripping family drama and heightened, stylised, brutal, The Raid-esque series. I am very excited to now be a part of it.

Can you give us a brief overview of the new series?

It’s really kind of a whodunnit mystery in two parts. One storyline is the spiking of cocaine which kills hundreds of people throughout London, and trying to find out who did this and why. The other is figuring out who killed the wife and child of Elliot (Sopé Dìrísù).

Let’s talk about your character, Zeek. How would you describe him?

He’s an enigmatic, mysterious character who initially seems to have arrived from nowhere. Obviously, he’s been assigned a very specific task, which we shall not spoil, but he’s a lone wolf, an assassin. He’s basically like a human hand grenade who’s been thrown into the mix and stirs up a lot of chaos. We were discussing how he and his story would make a really great video game.

Zeek is certainly a complex character! What would you like to see happen for him if his story continues?

I’d like to see what would happen if he were able to claim more power. Gangs of London is about a lot of power struggles, between the gangs and within their units, so being someone who hasn’t got many allegiances and works on his own, playing by his own rules – it would be great to see what he would accomplish.

What was it like joining the Gangs family?

It’s always interesting joining at a later season, or joining a TV show where there’s a pre-established family, but as Zeek is a bit of an outsider, that kind of worked for me. I was able to keep to the outside and this really helped me find the character.

Who did you have the most fun on set with?

Sopé Dìrísù who plays Elliot, we had a great time and got to dance together a bit on set.

Yes the BIG fight scene. GoL is renowned for its fight scenes, and you are no stranger to a fight on screen either. Did you do all your own stunts?

Yes I did pretty much all of them actually, except there is a massive fall that we had to do over and over again so we had to get the stunt team in for that. But for the most part Sopé and I were just beating each other up, basically, for sort of three days straight.

Crikey is that how long it takes to film it?

Yes, it was filmed over a period of three to four days, separated in different places.

Any mishaps while filming?

There may have been a mishap or two. The main casualty was a camera lens hood which got punched. The GoL style is very up close and intimate, the camera team get really close to the action, so one time in this fight scene with Sopé, I just turned around and clocked that camera.

Ouch! Was your hand was ok?

My hand was fine, but the camera wasn’t so good!

Did you steal anything from set, or do you wish you had?

Yea a couple of cameras ha ha ha. No, I would like to have taken the nice leather jacket that I wore throughout the show. I might ask for it, they should give it to me really.

Maybe they kept it as payment for the camera lens

Ha! I hadn’t thought of that.

GoL is pretty gruelling, how do unwind after filming?

You go home, you sleep, you go over your lines and then it’s back to work. You don’t get much time to switch off really. And I was shooting Black Doves at the same time as this so it was non-stop.

What’s next in the pipeline for you?

I’ve got a few things coming up. I begin shooting a film soon, there might be one later in the year, I can’t say too much I’m afraid. But hopefully back as Zeek in GoL Season 4!

You can watch Andrew and the rest of the Gangs of London crew in action on Sky Atlantic and NOW. All 8 episodes of S3 are available to watch now.

Interview: Claire Hool