Wild at Heart's Deon: 'Dup's naughty, but not bad'

Wild at Heart's Deon: 'Dup's naughty, but not bad'
Wild at Heart's Deon: 'Dup's naughty, but not bad'

Wild at Heart's Deon Stewardson chats about his wayward character, loveable rogue Anders Du Plessis... Du Plessis is convinced Danny murdered their old enemy, Christian Peeters. Is the strain beginning to show? "Dup thinks Peeters has come back as a vulture and haunting him! When Dup found Peeters' body he thought that Danny killed him. So he buried the body in order to protect his friend. Now the storyline gets very serious as the police are looking for Peeters." How did you find working with a vulture? "During the filming the vulture was flying about and I didn't quite know what to do. It's not a little vulture, it's big! I wasn't that keen on getting that close to it because you never know what a vulture's going to do." In the show you're married to Hayley Mills. What is she like to work with? "Hayley is great fun and we get along very well. Dup and Caroline's relationship is very sweet, they're a great couple. It shows that no matter how old you are, you can still meet someone and find love." What is it you like about playing Dup? "I like how he can look himself in the mirror in the morning because, even if he does naughty things, he never does bad things. He's an honourable person and a tremendous character. He doesn't read books, but he's smart in a bushcraft way. He knows about life." In the last series we saw Dup running around naked. Was that actually you or a body double? "It was actually me! They tried to get me to wear a hysterical looking triangle of cloth, but I refused and just did it!" Wild at Heart screens on Sunday evenings on ITV1

Patrick McLennan

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.