Sanjeev Bhaskar didn't know why he was cast in Unforgotten: 'I thought it was a terrible mistake'
Sanjeev Bhaskar didn't know why he had been cast in 'Unforgotten' and thought bosses had made a "terrible mistake" in giving him the job.
Sanjeev Bhaskar didn't know why he had been cast in 'Unforgotten'.
The 61-year-old actor was best known for his comedy when he landed the role of DI Sunny Khan in the hit ITV drama series alongside Nicola Walker but admitted even halfway through production of the second series, he worried bosses would think they had made a "terrible mistake" in giving him the job.
Speaking on the 'White Wine Question Time' podcast, he told former 'Loose Women' anchor Kate Thornton: "I think it was the middle of series two before I had the nerve to go and ask [Chris Lang, writer] why he'd cast me, because I thought if I asked him before, he might just say, oh my goodness, we've made a terrible mistake!' I don't, and he said, well, he said, look, I'd seen you, you do comedy. And I thought, you know, if you can apply that timing to drama, then we've got everything covered in this. And, um, wow. Which was nice of him. And so I still there's a bit of me that still can't believe that I'm in it, but. So I'm still kind of, wow, I'm in this show. Isn't that amazing?"
The 'Kumars at No. 42' star admitted that he had always tried to make small appearances in dramas over the course of his career but it was only once he met writer Chris that he had a "big stroke of luck" with the genre.
He said: "I kind of in terms of my effort, you know, I tried to do bits, bit parts in dramas. So I did a bit in, um, Silent Witness. I did a kind of episode of this, that and the other. And The Indian Doctor was kind of was, was was drama light really. It was kind of, um, light, but it was it wasn't sketch characters, uh, doing comedy. So, you know, there was there was me making that effort and also working out whether I could do it or not.
"But the big stroke of luck was 'Unforgotten' was that I went in when I went in to see Chris Lang for the audition. I said to him, look, you know, I really went in. I didn't think I'd get it. I thought I wouldn't cast me as a detective, given what I've done. It's ridiculous. So I thought, but what a great opportunity to go in!"
