25 June 2024 , 20:53
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Martin Compston was on the brink of dropping out from Line of Duty.
The 40-year-old acting sensation came close to missing out on his career-defining role as Steve Arnott in the widely-acclaimed BBC police drama - which spotlights Adrian Dunbar, aged 65, and Vicky McClure, aged 41- due to his lust to shine in the Scottish rendition of The Godfather. Nonetheless, his agent guided him towards the series masterminded by Jed Mercurio.
In conversation with The Big Issue, Martin revealed: "When I was offered 'Line of Duty', I'd already been offered the film The Wee Man." He further elaborated: "And at the time my focus was really on The Wee Man because growing up on the west coast of Scotland, that story is so ingrained in the culture, it's like our version of The Godfather."
He continued: "So I was actually panicking. I was about to pull out of 'Line of Duty'. I'm forever grateful to my agent who said, you have to do this. I had no idea what a big success it would be. I just knew it had an amazing cast and script. I had no idea it would be that big."
Martin starred alongside Adrian Dunbar and Vicky McClure in the hit series (BBC)Recently, Martin voiced his ecstasy, saying he was "delighted with the response" to the announcement of the show gearing up for its seventh season. On his Radio X show with Chris Moyles, he said: "I'm delighted with the response. People are now really intrigued to see if there is another one, but there's nothing changed for us in terms of where we're at after we finish a series... We always take a year between [seasons] at least. The dust settles and Jed figures out whether there's a story to tell. So I'm delighted that people are so excited and so desperate to find out but, as I say, this is what we've done after every series so we'll just wait and see what he thinks."
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It comes after Martin opened up to the Mirror about the future of the programme. He said: "I'm sorry," before adding: "They're some of my closest friends, we all love Jed [Mercurio], and we'd all love to work together at some point but there are no immediate plans." He went on to say: "It's just getting us all together and stuff. We'd like to but yeah, these things are a bit complicated. But there are no immediate plans." The finale episode of series six ended on May 2, 2021, averaging around 15.39 million viewers after popularity spiked during the coronavirus lockdown.