Beyond Paradise star Kris Marshall reveals which TV detectives helped inspire Humphrey – and that he's only watched Love Actually once
The Beyond Paradise star is channelling Columbo, Miss Marple and Withnail and I.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
What’s the view from your sofa?
Documentaries and sport! When you spend seven months of the year on a film set, the last thing you want to watch is something that takes place on a film set. I find it hard to suspend my disbelief so I’m not a binge watcher of anything, which is rather unfortunate for my wife.
Because she wants to watch Game of Thrones?
I’ve never seen Game of Thrones. We haven’t even seen Adolescence either. The greatest drama for me is in real life.
What’s so special about sport?
Nothing ever brings me to tears, or close to tears, like sport does. I think it’s the immediacy of it, and that the jeopardy is real. I’m all about the underdog, too, and you really get that David and Goliath thing going on in sport.
Which documentaries do you like?
Anything that’s “man against the elements”. Free Solo is an amazing film about Alex Honnold, who climbed El Capitan in Yosemite [3,000ft] without ropes or protective gear. In January, he climbed the Taipei 101 [1,667ft] in Taiwan on Skyscraper Live on Netflix. The Alpinist, about Canadian free solo climber Marc-André Leclerc, is great.
So you enjoy watching movies?
I have a pantheon that I absolutely love and will add to occasionally – Terms of Endearment, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Apocalypse Now, Withnail and I, Robert Altman’s films and, more recently, Don’t Look Up. I speak French, so Jules et Jim was a big part of my growing up. I’m a huge Truffaut fan, and I’m all for those French New Wave films. This does sound – I can hear myself as I’m saying it – incredibly esoteric.
Do you ever watch your own films? Love Actually now seems to have become a Christmas TV tradition…
I’ve only watched it once. Obviously, because of the cast and Richard Curtis, we knew it was going to be popular, but that it’s part of the cultural lexicon is crazy. I was listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning and they were discussing Keir Starmer refusing to let Donald Trump use our air bases and asking if this was Starmer’s “Love Actually moment”. We made it almost 25 years ago!
Have your children discovered it yet?
They’re 13 and 10, so not quite old enough to see their dad banging on about backpacks full of condoms. That Rubicon is yet to be crossed.
Beyond Paradise is back for a fourth series. Talk us through Humphrey’s detective DNA.
I’m not saying that I’ve lifted parts of my favourite TV detectives and made them into one character, but there are elements of Columbo, and Jim Rockford, because I was a huge fan of James Garner. There’s some Marple in there, and a bit of Barnaby Jones, who’s an American detective. There are little homages to my favourite films, too – nods to Withnail and I, which are hard to spot but you can see if you know what you’re looking for.
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How do you keep the character and series interesting?
I’m not used to playing characters for more than three years before saying I’ve had enough and moving on, but I’ve been playing Humphrey now, off and on, for 13 years. So, this is new ground for me, evolving the character. But he’s getting older, as am I, and one of the things I love about Beyond Paradise is that it’s not just a detective show. It’s cosy crime for sure, but there are elements of melodrama and comedy. And it’s about a community and family.
And Selwyn the duck, of course, who has been interviewed by Radio Times…
Really? I didn’t know that. I’m absolutely flabbergasted. But to use a duck analogy, and as I’ve always said about Death in Paradise, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface to make it look serene on top.
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Beyond Paradise returns on BBC One and iPlayer on Friday 27 March at 8pm.
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Authors
Gareth McLean has been writing about television for nearly 30 years. As a critic, he's reviewed thousands of programmes. As a feature writer, he's interviewed hundreds of people, from Liza Minnelli to Jimmy Savile. He has also written for TV.
