By The Citizen Gloucester UK

Kris Marshall stars in Death in Paradise

Kris Marshall, 41, plays DI Humphrey Goodman in Death In Paradise. He talks to Roger Crow about his second run of the BBC One comedy drama, the pressure of filming in the Caribbean, and his upcoming movie, Sparks And Embers

HOW MANY SECONDS DID IT TAKE BEFORE SAYING ‘YES’ TO DEATH IN PARADISE?

It was definitely a second… with a split in front of it. Joking aside, the Caribbean is quite a draw. I did think about it quite keenly because I had never joined an existing show before; it was a new experience for me. It was quite a risky one. I don’t mind taking risks, but I didn’t want the BBC to hand me the reins to one of their flagship mid-week shows and turn it from a nearly eight million viewer show into a four million viewer show; that would have been dire, so I did have to think quite hard about it, but at the end of the day, the Caribbean wins through.

HOW HAVE YOU COPED WITH THE HEAT AND INSECT BITES?

Well you just have to manage it and hope for the best. Last year, the problem was dengue fever. This time it was chikungunya; there’s a big outbreak of that in the Caribbean at the moment. We would have at least two people off a week with it. Chikungunya is Tanzanian for ‘The contorted man’; it enflames your joints – the fever goes away after about a week, but up to six months later, you can have these really stiff joints, especially in the morning when you wake up, so we would have some of our crew hobbling around in the morning to shake off the effects, but luckily I dodged that bullet and my wife and son did as well. You just have to manage it really and hope for the best; you’re going to get bitten. Everybody does.

HAVING SPENT HALF HIS LIFE IN GUADELOUPE, IS YOUR SON THOMAS SPEAKING FLUENT FRENCH NOW?

He speaks a bit of French yeah; I speak French as well, but he won’t speak French with me. I go and pick him up from creche sometimes. He’s two-and-a-half so he’s not fluent in English or French, but I hear him speaking French and then I speak French to him and say: ‘You’re speaking French to your teacher, why don’t you speak French to daddy?’ [and he says]: ‘No daddy. English daddy. English.’

DO THE LOCALS KNOW YOU IN GUADELOUPE?

One of the only places I could go in the world where I wouldn’t get recognised was France, and Guadeloupe is French, so that’s all changed now because Death In Paradise is now really quite popular in France as well. When I first went out there [2013], it was lovely because I wasn’t getting recognised for the six months that I was out there – and then this year it completely changed.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE INSTALMENT OF THE NEW SERIES?

Episode five because we just had such a brilliant cast. It was my favourite script as well; we just had great fun with it. And we had such brilliant actors; we had Nick Moran, Neil Morrissey, Sally Phillips, Francis Magee. It was an episode about a band so they were all playing old rockers – faded Nineties rockers; it was a great, fun script.

WATCHING LOVE ACTUALLY IS A CHRISTMAS RITUAL FOR MANY FANS. ARE YOU AMAZED BY ITS POPULARITY?

Yeah, amazing how successful it was. Eleven years ago now… and in America as well, they start bringing it out around Thanksgiving, so they bring it out even earlier than we do. It’s just one of those films that captured the zeitgeist, though I’ve not seen it for years.

YOU PLAY ONE OF THE BEST ROLES – A LOTHARIO SANDWICH DELIVERY GUY

Yeah, he wishes he were a Lothario – he’s a legend in his own lunchtime. The thing with Colin Frissell is he is not going to let reality get in the way of his dream.

I LOVED CULT BBC DRAMA FUNLAND. WHAT’S BEEN YOUR FAVOURITE PROJECT THAT DESERVED A HIGHER PROFILE?

My Life In Film, a show I did for BBC Two with Andrew Scott – long before he was Moriarty [in Sherlock] – many years ago. I thought that was a really fantastic funny, intelligent show. Some stuff you love which doesn’t work; you’re like: ‘Oh well. Never mind. Move on’. But I would have loved that to have done a bit better; it’s quite cult now. I love Funland as well; that was a great, great show to do.

FINALLY, TELL US ABOUT YOUR PENDING MOVIE, SPARKS AND EMBERS…

It’s a two-hander between me and a French actress, Annelise Hesme. It’s a really great script actually; it’s a story about a guy who gets fired from a record company and as he’s leaving, he gets in the lift and the woman who’s just fired him gets in the lift with him, and the lift gets stuck, and they can’t get out. It cuts to five years later, he’s in a bar and she walks up to him and she says: ‘I’m leaving you and moving back to France with someone else.’ So you know they got together and you know obviously they’ve broken up, but you don’t know how or what or who, so the story flashes between the two times: the time in the lift and sort of unpacks the story as you go along, and it’s all linked. It’s an independent film so it’s taken a bit longer than one would have liked to get it all finished, but it’s ready now; out in festivals at the moment.

For more on this story go to: http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/minutes-Death-Paradise-actor-Kris-Marshall/story-25796668-detail/story.html#ixzz3Ngp9eLEM

Related story:

It’s trouble in paradise for star Kris Marshall

By Kirsty Nutkins from Daily Express UK

Filming Death In Paradise is a tough job, says Kris Marshall.

“It’s like putting on a wetsuit, sitting in a sauna and attempting to recite Hamlet.”

Actor Kris Marshall is trying his best to convince us that his role as DI Humphrey Goodman, on BBC1 detective drama Death In Paradise, isn’t as easy as it looks.

That wearing a suit for 14 hours a day, six days a week in tropical heat, while trying to deliver wordy Agatha Christie-inspired dénouements, can be positively unbearable.

But we’re not buying it.

It still seems a small price to pay to spend six months of the year working in the Caribbean.

“You miss your friends, you miss Guinness and roast dinners, you’re dying not to speak French any more…” he continues.

“But then, when you get home, you think: Why was I wishing for this?

“It’s grey, it’s raining, I’m stuck on the M4 in traffic.

“You feel like you’re in the pit of despair, even though you’ve wanted this for so long.”

His stint on the beautiful island of Guadalupe (fictional island Saint-Marie, in the show) might seem like a distant memory, but Kris – known for his roles in My Family and Love Actually – looks relaxed and still enviably tanned.

“What was lovely this time around was that I didn’t have that pressure of ‘Oh God, I hope I don’t screw this up’,” he says about his second series of Death In Paradise, playing lead detective Humphrey.

You miss your friends, you miss Guinness and roast dinners, you’re dying not to speak French any more…

Kris Marshall

“My one concern about taking this job was that I didn’t want to turn a show that gets nearly eight million viewers into a show that gets four million viewers.

“That’s not going to look good for me.”

Kris joined at the beginning of the third series of Death In Paradise, following the exit of Ben Miller, whose character DI Richard Poole – an English eccentric with a hatred for island life – was intrinsic to the show’s success.

He left big shoes to fill and Kris was understandably nervous.

“I knew I couldn’t play the same character as Ben,” he says.

“I couldn’t play an Englishman who comes out to the Caribbean and hates the heat, who carries a briefcase around and mops his brow the whole time.

“Ben did that brilliantly and that’s why it’s a popular show.

“There are different types of fish-out-of-water – Humphrey is just a different type of fish.

“I wanted to make him very English, but in a different kind of way,” he says.

The gamble paid off for Kris, whose portrayal of awkward, accident-prone Humphrey – alongside regulars Don Warrington (Commissioner Selwyn Patterson) and Sara Martins (Camille Bordey) – helped to pull in more viewers than the last series.

Kris is excited about series four, which has a number of guest stars appearing (Jane Fox, Neil Morrissey and Amy Nuttall, among others), but feels pressure now to keep his character interesting.

“He can’t just be this guy who falls out of windows all the time.

Kris with co-star Sara Martins who plays Camille Bordey BBC

Kris with co-star Sara Martins who plays Camille Bordey

“It’s really important to keep the story moving, to keep Humphrey interesting.

“One of the ways we’ll try to achieve this in series four is through the dynamic between him and Camille.”

At the end of last series, Humphrey had called time on his marriage to Sally (Morven Christie) and realised that his feelings for co-worker Camille were far from platonic.

This time around, we see him grappling with whether to reveal all to her or keep quiet for the sake of their friendship.

“Everyone knows how Humphrey feels about Camille… except Camille,” laughs Kris.

“He’s completely in love with her.

“He doesn’t want to upset the apple cart, but it can’t go on forever.

“He can’t help himself.

“Something’s going to happen…”

In real life, Kris, 41, is happily married to Hannah Dodkin, with whom he has a two-year-old son called Thomas.

When Kris took the part in Death In Paradise, the whole family relocated to the Caribbean for the duration of filming.

“It’s wonderful having them around and this year has been better than last, because my son is a bit older,” says Kris.

“When he came out the first time, he was eight months and he just wanted to eat sand and pick up centipedes!

“This year, he goes to the French nursery and speaks a little French, too.”

Kris says he feels lucky to be part of the prime-time show and is full of praise for the way it is written.

“It doesn’t take itself too seriously and I think it’s a credit to itself because of that.

“People may sneer and say: ‘It’s too light and fluffy. Is it a comedy?’

“Yes, of course it is!

In what other show does someone get murdered and their lipstick stay perfectly in place?”

IMAGE: Kris Marshall as DI Humphrey Goodman in Death In Paradise BBC

For more on this story go to: http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/tv-radio/549859/Trouble-paradise-star-Kris-Marshall-Death-In-Paradise-drama