Uriah Heep Nicholas Lyndhurst Lurking and evil, the humble, flame-haired Uriah Heep is Mr. Wickfield's slippery, scheming clerk, whose ambition sees David as a threat. His hatred for the man he first meets as a boy is intensified by his love for Agnes. Heep is a difficult character to play, says Nicholas Lyndhurst. "The hardest part is trying to get what I call 'shark-eye' -- just looking without emotion, and that is quite difficult because Heep is perfectly polite. There's not a lot -- until you get into the story -- which you wouldn't like about him. He's perfectly civil and polite, but there's something about him that nobody likes. And I want the audience to know that immediately. He's also one of those people who invades your body space. He just makes you very, very uncomfortable." The 6 foot, 4 inch Lyndhurst is well known in England for his work in situation comedies. At the beginning of the shoot he felt he was "treading water" with some of the other stars of the David Copperfield cast. I was terrified when they said Maggie Smith was in it. Then they said Bob Hoskins ... aaagh ... what the hell am I doing here? This cast ... it's mesmerizing."