I couldn't get too shirty with thieves; INTERVIEW; David Morrissey.
David Morrissey knows all about crime - being on the receiving end of it, that is.As a student living in London David, who plays Detective Sergeant Jim Lewyn in Out Of The Blue (BBC1, 9.30pm), was a victim of burglaries on a regular basis.
"Our flat was done over so many times - five times in one month was the record - that we finally stuck a notice on the door with 'We give up' written upon it," he says.
"After a while, we got fed up because they didn't nick things and we thought: 'What's wrong with this jacket?'
"They came and stole my tapes and my record player but they left a few tapes like my Van Morrison ones.
"They took most of my clothes but not all of them and they never nicked the telly - probably because it was a sad black- and-white job.
"A policeman once asked me what I thought of the burglar and I said he had no taste in music and certainly no taste in clothes because he'd left a great shirt behind."
Liverpool-born David, 30, has hardly been off television this year.
First he starred as SAS hero Andy McNab in the ITV Gulf War drama The One That Got Away, then he appeared as insurance investigator Michael Ride in the acclaimed BBC serial Into The Fire. "It's all been pretty serious stuff," says David, who lives in London with his writer wife Esther Freud and their one-year-old son Albie.
"My mum doesn't like that all too much.
"She says: 'You always seem to be kicking someone!' But she's very proud of me which is great."
Jim Lewyn is a new character in the gritty cop series, replacing Four Weddings And A Funeral star John Hannah's character Franky Drinkall, who died in the final episode of the first series last year. "Jim is an excellent policeman," says David. "He's tenacious but finds himself restricted by solicitors.
""He doggedly pursues people whom he perceives to be guilty."
David doesn't come from an acting background. His dad was a shoe-repairer and his mum, Joan, worked at Littlewoods.
He admits he found moving to London to study drama at RADA tough. "Drama school was OK," he says. "It was more getting used to the sheer size of London.
"It was all unfamiliar territory and I didn't know where anything was.
"And financially it was pretty tough, too."
Now, 10 years on, with a string of television credits to his name, along with roles with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, the hard work has paid off.
"I've been lucky enough to have worked pretty consistently," he says.
 Printer friendly
 Cite/link
 Email
 Feedback
| |
| Title Annotation: | Features |
|---|---|
| Author: | Clark, Steve |
| Publication: | The Mirror (London, England) |
| Date: | Aug 19, 1996 |
| Words: | 443 |
| Previous Article: | All at sea with the nukes of hazard. |
| Next Article: | TERROR OF KIDS IN CARE. |