Arsher Ali: 'I had people's mums telling me how evil I was after The Missing' (VIDEO)

(Image credit: Jules Heath)

Arsher Ali says his role in hugely popular BBC1 abduction mystery The Missing had a downside, when reacted badly to his character.

Arsher, 30, played Malik Suri in The Missing, a deceitful journalist who concealed evidence which could have solved the mystery of what happened to missing boy Oliver Hughes.

Arsher told What's on TV: "I knew I was going to be hated by the nation or whoever watches it so there were little bits... Every actor wants to be liked and to play a character who's so loathed... It was nice to play that part and to be faithful to what was on the page, to not get in the way of it, to not want to be liked.

"But it was tough. I had people's mums telling me how evil I was and things like that... Like 'Ohh, my mum thinks you're evil!'"

Arsher is thrilled to be appearing in new series of Doctor Who. "I'm a massive fan of the show, " he said. "It's a two-parter which I like because Doctor Who is nothing without a cliffhanger, that's the Doctor Who I've been brought up on, watching Sylvester McCoy, who was my first doctor, that's how the show should be."

Arsher next co-stars opposite Martin Clunes in the ITV real life period mystery, Arthur & George, which premieres on Monday, March 2.

Watch the interview with Arsher Ali, above.

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.