Martin Compston says ‘kill character off’ in Line of Duty for one hilarious reason

“I said, ‘you either need to get me time off or kill me off.'”

Line of Duty season 7 is finally officially happening, with Martin Compston, Vicky McClure and Adrian Dunbar all coming back to try and root out corruption in the police force and talk in mostly abbreviations.

But Steve Arnott actor Compston has joked that he’d like his character to be killed off in the newest episodes.

Chatting to Lorraine Kelly on Lorraine this week, the actor spoke about how excited he was that Scotland had finally made it to the football World Cup for the first time in almost 30 years, and nothing is going to get in the way of him going to see his home country play.

What to Read Next

Martin Compston’s Line of Duty return set to ‘mirror real life’ with crime plot

Tom Hardy’s “unforgettable” debut movie lands new UK streaming home

Vicky McClure and Martin Compston react to Line of Duty’s long-awaited return: “Back with my besties”

“We’re doing Line of Duty when it’s on. I said, ‘you either need to get me time off or kill me off, ’cause I’m going to one of [the matches]’.”

Next year’s World Cup will be taking place across June and July in the USA, Mexico and Canada, which gives us an idea of when at least some of the filming will take place.

BBC

Elsewhere in the interview, Compston talked about how production is heading back to Belfast, which he described as “like a second home” for the cast and crew.

“We always knew we’d do another [season] at some point,” he said of the long gap. “We’ve all been busy, but it got to the point where we said: ‘Let’s all clear our schedules, let’s all get together’.

“Jed [Mercurio, creator] has just finished his big Netflix show, so yeah, it’s exciting. The storyline’s great.”

BBC/World Productions/Steffan Hill//BBC

He added that it’s “quite depressing” nowadays that scripts are increasingly being tailored for people who aren’t really paying attention to what they’re watching because they’re also on their phones, but he insisted that Line of Duty won’t start doing that.

“We don’t need to legislate for that,” he said.