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PPicture it. You are in a supermarket along the party strip of Sin City in Las Vegas. Then who should you see in the queue other than Steve Arnott line of duty – However, instead of taking out the bent copper, he is storing some groceries. You’d be forgiven for assuming you were still feeling the effects of last night’s tequila, but you’d be wrong.
This is a scene in which martin compstonWho played Britain’s favorite waistcoat-wearing anti-corruption officer in Jed Mercurio blockbuster police drama Since 2012, has acted unknowingly a few times. “You’re standing in checkout lines and they’re doing double, triple and then quadruple takes, trying to figure out if it’s you, because you’re standing there in shorts and flip-flops,” he says. “And they also hear the Scottish accent, it’s confusing for them.”
What are “some London detectives” doing “standing in a Vegas shopping market” sounding very Scottish indeed? When he’s not filming, or spending time in his hometown of Greenock, Inverclyde, Compston, 41, lives in Vegas; That’s where his wife, actor and event planner Tiana Flynn, comes in.
And so, apart from the questioning glances of tourists or the odd American fan, the star of the biggest British TV show of the last 20 years – 12.8 million of us tuned for line of dutyThe divisive season six finale In 2021, it became the most-watched drama episode since modern records began – managing to maintain a very low-key existence.
You get the feeling he wouldn’t have it any other way. Compston, who is speaking over Zoom from a fancy hotel room, looks like she’s wearing everything line of dutyRecord-breaking successes, to put it mildly. He exudes an unrehearsed friendliness, encouraging conversation with “friends” and being quick to smile – a stark contrast to Arnott’s slightly standoffish, tersely accented arrogance.
However, that amiability is a bit inconsistent with the main topic of our conversation agenda, which is, well, our own withdrawal. In his latest series, avenger clubWhich is debuting this month on Paramount+, Compston plays newly divorced Callum, who “feels like he’s lost the perfect family” and is being torn away from his young daughter. However, when he joins a therapy circle for recently divorced people, he meets “this group of kindred spirits who are all lost, empty and broken”.
After their sessions at the pub, the conversation turns to the same thing: What if the group pooled their skills to take very specific revenge on each of their former lovers? “It gives them a spark back in their life, it gives them purpose to feel useful again – and that can be quite attractive,” says Compston.
He believes this is compelling fuel for drama, because “Everyone has a revenge fantasy somewhere in their mind, whether it’s someone who bullied you at school, or someone who made your work life hell, or someone who crashed your car and didn’t leave a note, no matter what. But most people are nice people, so it remains a fantasy. You’ll never act on it. But when you have someone like that together There are people who are provoking each other, so things can get out of control very quickly”.
As the group’s plot begins to take a darker turn, the show moves from black comedy to “the kind of mischief that ocean’s eleven Speaking of murder mysteries: “Sometimes it’s weird to see the tonal shift, but I love it,” he says. Callum’s relationship with his daughter, he added, helped ground some of those more awkward scenes. “I’m a father myself, so you can understand and relate to it,” he says. “I mean, I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t a part of my son’s life, so you just try and think about it in that context.”
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Compston admits that the comedic element, “was a little out of my comfort zone”; Her last breakthrough in a comedy role was when she played a fellow Scot, singer-songwriter Midge Ure, in a Live Aid parody as part of Sky. urban myth series back in 2018. “People love Sharon [Rooney] and meera [Syal, who play Calum’s fellow Revenge Club members] “Just the funny bones,” he says. “There’s a precision to his timing, it’s like a laser, whereas I think to myself, if I’m doing comedy, I need to really commit to the truth of it. I can’t play it funny. I just have to play it real.”
As a teenager, Compston’s focus was on football, playing for Aberdeen’s youth team and eventually signing a contract with his local club, Greenock Morton. Then a teacher asked him to come to an open casting being held at his school; The audition was for Ken Loach sweet sixteenAnd Compston was eventually offered the lead role of Liam, a young delinquent trying to get his life back on track.
sweet sixteen That ended up going to the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 – the teenage Compston chose a kilt for her first major red carpet appearance – and she’s been acting ever since (although Loach apparently advised her to stick to football, as the industry can be so insecure).
He has worked solidly since then, but line of duty Unquestionably propelled him to a different level of stardom, where he now often headlines big streaming productions like Prime Video. stuff or primetime thrillers like ITV red eyeReturning on New Year’s Day. And yet he almost had to play Steve.
Around the same time Compston auditioned for Mercurio & Company, he said, he was also offered the chance to star as notorious Glasgow gangster Paul Ferris in the film. the wee manCompston explains, “I’ve been really fortunate to do a lot of indie films, work with some great people, but they’ve all been seen in indie theaters and stuff,” “It wasn’t anything that my family or my friends or the people I go to the pub with would particularly want to see,” But playing Ferris, whose story was “just in our psyche,” would certainly be a hit for him,
So when Compston learned that both projects would be shooting at the same time, he told his agent, “If it comes to one or the other, do it. the wee man“. Thankfully, for him and for us, the agent “did a wonderful job” with scheduling, and he can do both. “I don’t have too many regrets in life, but it gives me cold sweats every now and then, wondering if I didn’t land that role and see someone else with that kind of career at this point,” he says. “It would have been heartbreaking.”
Last month, after almost five years of speculation and contradictory “will they, won’t they” soundbites, the BBC confirmed that line of duty Will return for the seventh seasonFor fans who were disappointed by series six’s big “H” reveal, and who were missing AC-12’s quirky idioms and police acronyms, this is thrilling news, When I bring it up, Compston speaks with the relief of a man who no longer has to come up with endless variations on the theme of “maybe” when asked about the show’s future, “It’s nice, especially right before we start a week-long junket, not to have to bother everyone,” he says with a laugh,
His co-star and close friend Vicki McClure, who plays Steve’s no-nonsense police colleague Kate Fleming, wasn’t so lucky; She finally got to promote the latest season of her ITV thriller trigger point Before the news became official. “We put off the announcement until later, and I felt sorry for him, because I knew he had to play the game,” he says. The two of them, along with Adrian Dunbar, aka AC-12’s endlessly quotable Superintendent Ted Hastings, “knew very early on that we were going to do another thing, but we knew it wouldn’t be for long”.
Mercurio, meanwhile, “always been adamant that we wouldn’t announce anything until we had a filming date and the beginning of the script”. Compston promised that the “amount of distance” between the season six finale and the next installment has given the showrunners “time to craft another great story. You know, it’s not rushed. It’s not just ‘the last one was a huge success, so we’ll do another season.'”
We knew very early on that we were going to do another ‘Line of Duty’, but we knew it wouldn’t last long
He has read the first three scripts – the cast receives them in two volumes of three, the first before filming begins and the second “somehow, because they can add to it and change stuff” – and he has a “very well-defined” idea of the story. Of course, it’s not like he’s allowed to share it, although the BBC has revealed that the series will focus on a charismatic officer who is accused of abusing his power to act as a sexual predator. According to Compston, Mercurio has the ability to “dig up little bits of truth about something that actually happened in police corruption, then he takes it and runs with it”; “This story will reflect social changes”, he hinted, “which is exciting to delve into”.
It is “normal”, however, that he will be working on season seven when the 2026 World Cup is in full swing: as a former professional and proud Scot, he has been waiting “since I was 14 years old” to see his national team qualify for the competition. The plan is to stop filming “just before the semi-final stage” and “not to put too much pressure on us, but I think we may be out of shape by then” (Scotland will face Brazil and 2022 surprise semi-finalists Morocco in the group stage). But he still hopes he’ll “get a chance to play a game” during production. “I have to – been waiting so long, I need to experience this.” Sure, line of duty It could be a big deal and everything. “But the World Cup? It’s definitely the greatest show on Earth!”
‘The Revenge Club’ streams December 12 on Paramount+