James Nesbitt on new C4 thriller Suspect: ‘This is Danny's last shot at redemption!’

“He’s a very complex, difficult, sad, angry man, who we find in quite a bad state. He was once a very good cop, in a loving relationship with wife Susannah [His Dark Materials star Anne-Marie Duff] and daughter Christina, who he adored. But then the demons within him destroyed all that. When he sees Christina’s dead body in the mortuary, it reignites both the copper and the father in him as he tries to unlock the truth about what happened to her.”

“Definitely. We learn that Danny didn’t fulfil his duties as a father or as a husband, and he feels he let his daughter down. This is his last shot at redemption.”

“Yes, there are eight actors, with a different person appearing in each episode. We’re working out the relationship Danny’s had with all of them, at whatever point in his life, and also what they can give him now, because everyone has a different agenda and a different truth about what’s happened to Christina."

“As an actor, you’re always looking for something that will challenge you, and this was really exciting. The other actors helped me enormously, just by their own brilliance. They were each only coming in for one episode, but they all took it so seriously. 

“As there’s only two of you, you really have to trust each other, which lends itself to creating something very painful but very real. They all brought an authenticity, a truth, and a voice to their character that made it easy for me to spark off them; it felt electric.”

“I worked with Sacha Dhawan [who plays Christina’s business partner, Jaisal] and Antonia Thomas [AKA Christina’s best friend, Maia] on 2010 BBC One drama The Deep. But I’ve never worked with Anne-Marie Duff before, and the way she unlocks Susannah’s grief over Christina’s death with such grace but raw pain is amazing. 

“Similarly, Richard E Grant has a very long monologue as business mogul Harry and he did it in the first take. All these actors had prepared so well, that the competitive part of me had to rise to the challenge. I thought, ‘I’m gonna have to step up here!’"

“No, it wasn’t a conscious decision... Murphy’s Law I did for five series [James played tough undercover cop Tommy Murphy in the hit BBC One series, from 2001 to 2007] and Stan Lee’s Lucky Man I did for three seasons [he played Murder Squad detective Harry Clayton in the Sky One drama from 2016 to 2018]. And, recently, I played DS Michael Broome in Netflix series Stay Close and, of course, Tom Brannick in BBC One drama Bloodlands. 

“So there have been quite a few detectives, but I don’t know why. I’d like to say it’s because people see the good in me, but the cops I play are usually corrupt! With Suspect, I don’t think you’re considering a lot of the time that Danny is a police officer; he’s just a man. Could I be a cop in real life? No. I’m too old, is the short answer to that!”

“What's so interesting about the second series is that now the audience knows Tom Brannick is serial killer Goliath, it gives us more range for him. He still has to keep his identity hidden but it’ll be interesting to see what unfolds as no one else knows…

“I was filming a scene down by Strangford Lough [in Northern Ireland] and, where we were shooting, a newlywed couple were having their wedding photos taken and they asked me if I’d be in one. But my whole face for that scene was covered in blood – that’s definitely one for their wedding album!”