Complicit: a "Zero Dark Thirty" for TV The film uses this visceral clash to illustrate the differences in the two characters" values. Despite his insecurities, Edward stays loyal to a traditional notion of Queen and country. But Waleed - who is also proud to be British - argues the Iraq war was an act of terror on the part of a tyrannical British government, and is convinced of the UK's need for a "peaceful Islamic revolution." As an Asian actor, Ali finds himself having to face terrorist stereotypes. "Pretty much 70 per cent of the time, as an Asian actor, that's the kind of stuff that flies my way," he says. "So I spend months trying to turn it away, because most of the time it's written like 24 - "Let's go with the mythology that every single dark-skinned guy is a baddie - and kill him. And run away from the explosion."" The ambiguities in Waleed's character are a refreshing change. Waleed's principled stand also sets Complicit apart from, say, Homeland, which was criticised for taking a white-man-good, brown-man-bad approach. Also, Edward is not the morally uncompromised hero spy dramas often present. When Waleed is tortured by the Egyptian authorities, Edward's involvement earns the film its title. "There's very little evidence that anyone in the [real life] British security services actually tortured anyone - but there's a lot of evidence that they were complicit in it," says Kevin Toolis, one of the film's producers. And that is what we explore, through class and race and British identity. Complicit's thoughtfulness about Edward's dilemma gives it a different tone from Kathryn Bigelow's film Zero Dark Thirty, which treats similar events. "My personal response to Zero Dark Thirty was that I felt like it avoided the question," says Ali. Jessica Chastain, she spent about five minutes umming and ahhing, and a minute later she's watching someone being waterboarded, and it's all cool and she's pouting. That's not the way you should approach something as weighty as this. Hibbert agrees, saying that he finds "violence extremely distasteful on-screen. I hate it - I hate Quentin Tarantino's films. I hate him for coming here and celebrating violence and turning it into entertainment. It's totally unacceptable to be making those kind of films, when we're living in such a vulnerable age. And Hibbert has equally strong - if more good-humoured - views about Britain's own Spooks, in which Oyelowo used to star. "Spooks is kind of off-the-radar for stupidity," says Hibbert. Oyelowo counters that he "had a lot of fun" making Spooks. "But the fact of the matter is that we did the exciting bits of any MI5 operative's entire career in a single episode," he says. And when I spoke to ex-MI5 officers, they said that their job entailed a lot of waiting, a lot of watching, a lot of very dull stuff. So when this script came along, I felt it was important to show the other side of spy-dom - and that's what Complicit represented for me. Complicit begins on Sunday 17 February on Channel 4 at 9.00pm