IFTN has a lovely set report from Ripper Street.  The following is a small snippet:

The actors themselves admit that before they signed on for their roles they weren’t too immersed in the Jack the Ripper story: “For me [I was only familiar] from TV and films really, the Michael Caine Ripper, I remember seeing on TV,” said Macfadyen; “I was a big fan of Alan Moore’s film, which was a work of genius, but that’s about as familiar as I was with it,” said Rothenberg; “I didn’t know much except they never caught him,” said Flynn.

So why did they sign up? Macfadyen: “The writing, I think we’d all agree that usually it is the writing that gets you, unless it’s a really new and different idea. The writing is brilliant, the way it constructs its sentences, it’s not [actually] about Jack the Ripper.”

Be sure to read the full interview HERE.