David Tennant says he’s relieved that Dennis Nilsen, the serial killer he’s playing in ITV drama Des, is dead because otherwise he would have been “smugly pleased” his story was being told on television.
Nilsen, known as “Des” to people close to him, was convicted of the grisly murders of at least 12 men and boys in Cricklewood, London, during the ’70s and ’80s.
The former Broadchurch and Doctor Who star Tennant told The Sun he was only comfortable taking the role because the writers had avoided glorifying Nilsen.
He said: “I might have had reservations if we were presenting it as some sort of gothic horror piece. But we weren’t. After he was arrested, one of the things that Dennis Nilsen became obsessed with was ‘the legend of Des’.
“Even in prison, whenever he slipped out of public consciousness there was a sense that he wanted to get back into it.”
Nilsen even contacted notable non-fiction crime writer Brian Masters — played in Des by The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies star Jason Watkins — and helped him produce the 1985 biography, which was used as source material on the drama.
The other major character in Des, DCI Peter Jay (played by Line of Duty star Daniel Mays), died of cancer in 2018, also the same year and disease that killed Nilsen.
Tennant continued: “When we started developing this he was still alive. I’m very relieved he’s not now, because I would hate for this to go out and for him to be in his cell imagining that we were in any way glorifying him.
“I’m sure he would have complained about everything we said and everything we did, but at the same time would have been rather smugly pleased that he was on television.”
The three-part series Des will premiere on ITV on Monday, September 14th.
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from Radio Times https://ift.tt/3lJqMvI
