Guest Actors

- This series seems to attract the best actors going.

I mean, this year we've got just the most amazing talent who've come along to do it.

- Each year we come back, you are so impressed at the read-through, looking around the table at the gallery of actors that want to come and be part of the show.

We all firmly believe that is a testament to the show.

- Like you say, this is Series 3, but the minute you walk onto the set and start working, you feel like you're in a comfort zone.

- Yes.

- They all know what they're doing, so it makes you feel better.

I'm sorry but the first I've ever heard of this girl is now.

- A lot of procedural drama both here and America has stayed old-fashioned television, different story every week, characters can do anything, that sort of thing, so this is one of these that have taken on the notion of the story arch - Hey!

over a period of six hours in this case.

- [Alex] Yeah.

- So I think it's modern television in that way rather than, a lot of procedurals can get stuck in sort of an old-fashioned world in which everything's wrapped up-- - Murder a week.

Murder a week, yeah.

So that's a great attraction, certainly, acting in it because you have time to develop a character and not just come in and be some sort of instantly recognizable cliche and it all be resolved in an hour.

- Which we can do, can't we?

- We can do it if we're asked to.

- Cliches.

- Yeah, we're very good at cliches, actually.

- Sitting opposite any one of these great actors during a scene and then, being able to step up and go, "Oh my God," - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

and share that moment We get to share it, yeah.

without any sense of, Yeah.

kind of like, loss of security or face or any of those things.

- Nicola said to me that she enjoyed the moment when the guest stars came to the part where they're interviewed in the police station, and they all get that.

That's one of our sort of returning themes, and she said she always enjoyed the moment when the actor first sat down and saw how they performed as Sunny and Cassie, and how they had to then instantly adjust their performance.

And she always likes that kind of slight hand brake turn as she sees the actor go, "Oh, okay."

- "Oh."

Kevin McNally was funny this year.

The first interview he did, by the end of it he said, "Oh my God, I was really uncomfortable there.

"I thought I was really being interviewed "by the bloody police."

And he was serious.

Absolutely, they get it so right.