Line of Duty almost brought a past villain back for a recent series
Unfortunately, his character was cut – but Sacha Dhawan says he still hopes to return to Jed Mercurio’s police drama
BBC police corruption drama Line of Duty is known for the surprising comeback of key characters (hello Keeley Hawes!) as well delivering shock early exits for a few others – but apparently, one big cameo for a recent series was struck down before it even made it to air, with series two star Sacha Dhawan filming new scenes only to have them cut soon afterwards.
“I could come back!” Doctor Who star Dhawan tells Radio Times in our latest issue, noting that his character DS Manish Prasad was one of the few adversaries of AC-12 to go up against the team and survive the experience.
“A while ago Jed Mercurio got me to film a couple of new scenes. They didn’t make the cut unfortunately, but I’d love to come back to it properly.”
“I don’t remember what series it was,” Dhawan explained later.
“I was in for a couple of scenes, and then Jed messaged me and he was like 'I've been quite thrilled to get you back in it, but it doesn't quite work in the story.’ He was just doing me a huge favour by getting me back in.”
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Still, Dhawan says that playing the corrupt Prasad was good practice for when it came to bringing classic Doctor Who villain the Master to life in the current series of the BBC sci-fi drama, with Dhawan's evil Time Lord returning ahead of the much-anticipated series finale.
“Again it was such a great character,” Dhawan said.
“The nastier characters, or the evil characters as people refer to them, are always the more interesting characters to me, like the Master. They’re more fascinating, complex characters.”
To read our full interview with Sacha Dhawan, you can buy Radio Times’ special Doctor Who series 12 finale issue from Tuesday 25th February
