Mother of God – Vicky McClure has revealed it can be quite fiery off camera on the Line of Duty set with regular bust-ups between co-stars.
Vicky stars as DI Kate Fleming, Adrian Dunbar plays Supt Ted Hastings while Martin Compston is DS Steve Arnott and says it’s like “family” and it’s “never something so bad it’s not repairable”.
She insisted that it was no “big drama”, saying: “You can have a laugh and if anything it’s Adie who gets the brunt of it having to put up with me and Martin acting like a pair of school kids around him. There’s a perfect dynamic.
“The reality of it is of course we have, of course we have p***** each other off. It would be wrong of me to say ‘that has never happened’ as that would be a lie.
“But in the same way it is with family, it’s never something so bad it’s not repairable. I might not have had any sleep that night.
“He might not have had any sleep or loads of lines to learn, you get up to set you are knackered, there’s a lot going on.”
Returning last Sunday, the hit BBC One drama pulled in the biggest audience in the show’s history, with 9.6million viewers.
But despite the ratings the show was plunged into a row with the writer forced to defend his decision to have Supt Hastings refer to a suspect with Down’s Syndrome as “the local oddball” – on World Down Syndrome Day.
Writer Jed Mercurio said the line was a quote from Barry George, the man convicted then acquitted of murdering TV host Jill Dando, and was to portray “policing with some of its failings”.
He added: “The ones dealing with the suspect used different, more appropriate language.”
*Line of Duty continues on Sunday at 9pm on BBC One, with all previous episodes available now on BBC iPlayer.
