Death in Paradise star Ralf Little has opened up about his role in the BBC show as DI Neville Parker, and admitted that he noticed that viewers were annoyed by the character's selection of allergies - but they got to know him a little better!
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Chatting to HELLO!, he explained: "What has been really interesting, and is a credit to the writers and I hope reflects well on my performance, [is that] Neville’s character arrived and struggled with the environment because of allergies and all these things. People sometimes mistook that for, 'Oh he’s a hypochondriac'. He’s not a hypochondriac, those are real problems that he's trying to sort out."
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He continued: "You have to start from the position of something's wrong. And what's been really really interesting is watching people grow. It’s that idea of going, 'You know what, I'm totally on his journey with him, and I thought at first I was a bit annoyed, but now I'm just so pleased for him that he’s overcoming them.'"
Ralf opened up about his role
Speaking about whether he was frustrated by the initial reaction, he said: "Not really. One, I’ve been doing this a long time. Two, you can't please everyone. I knew it was a starting point... it was the start of his journey. And yeah, you might as well complain that Frodo Baggins doesn't have much of a life in the Shire. It's a bit boring. If we actually keep watching, things are going to happen, so it didn't worry me too much!"
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The popular actor, who recently starred in season ten of the hit show, was delighted by the response from the tenth-anniversary series, saying: "The response has been overwhelming actually. It was lovely last year but this year it's really sort of caught fire. There were hundreds and hundreds of messages of appreciation and support - more than I ever really could dream of."
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