The Rig’s Emily Hampshire and Iain Glen have expressed concern that the events depicted in the Amazon Prime thriller aren’t far from truth.
The thriller, which also stars Martin Compston, concerns a crew of oil rig employees stationed in the North Sea off the Scottish coast who become stranded when they are blanketed by a mysterious fog.
However, while Rose (Hampshire) investigates what is causing the catastrophic weather, members of the team become infected, causing them to suffer strange visions.
The ensuing drama focuses on humanity’s relationship with nature, with rig worker Alwyn (Mark Bonnar) summarising it as “If you keep punching the Earth, it’s going to punch back.”
‘What I enjoy about it, though, is that the supernatural part of it is founded in true science,’ Schitt’s Creek star Emily, 41, said of the theme of man-made environmental catastrophe portrayed in The Rig.
And so I find that far more interesting, because it’s similar to Black Mirror in the sense that the technology on that is simply the future.
‘And so this [The Rig] feels like this could happen I mean, it’s crazy, but it could happen.’
Martin, 38, of Line of Duty, stated that the fact that the events in The Rig, despite being supernatural, are believable is what defines ‘great drama.’
‘It’s when you find something with a grain of truth, and then you turn it up to 11,’ he explained. ‘You just go, “Let’s go full force.”

‘But everything was a little grain of truth at the startup, I think when it’s grounded in some sort of reality audiences grab onto it.’
Explaining that The Rig has an ‘ecological tone’ throughout its six episodes, Game Thrones’ Iain, described the fog as having an ‘eerie plausability.’
The 61-year-old continued: ‘Basically nature is throwing back at the people who are working on The Rig and there are very real reasons as to why that’s been caused to happen.

‘It has a kind of integrity about it and I’m hoping that the supernatural element is not just [woo woo] as the more they try and find out why the fog is there, the things that start happening get truly scary and manifest in bizarre ways. And not only to the things around them but to people themselves.
‘There is, I think, an eerie plausibility as to why it’s happening. And so throughout the whole thing, although, I hope you’re on the edge of the seat saying, “Oh, my goodness, what’s going to happen next?” there is that sense we all feel a little bit.
Iain alluded to that ‘sense’ being environmental disaster as climate change worsens, with Europe having had the hottest summer on record last year.
He added: ‘It sounds a bit odd, but on really, really warm autumnal days, I think, “Something’s not quite right”. There’s that element within The Rig.’
The Rig is available to stream on Amazon Prime.