Christopher Walken painted over a £10 million Banksy artwork when he was filming 'The Outlaws'.

Christopher Walken as Frank in The Outlaws

Christopher Walken as Frank in The Outlaws

The Hollywood movie legend appears as former prisoner Frank in the new BBC comedy, which was created by Stephen Merchant, and in the final episode his character paints over a giant rat, which was created by the world-famous street artist.

A TV insider said: "The creative team came up with the dream scenario and got in touch with the artist’s representatives in the faint hope that he might help them.

"Then they discovered shortly afterwards that he’d been to the location where they were filming and left something behind.

"They couldn’t believe their luck as he’d painted a giant rat using his hallmark stencilling technique as well as his distinctive signature."

Banksy was happy to go along with the stunt, but he wanted 'Pulp Fiction' star Christopher to be the one holding the paint roller in the scenes.

The insider added to The Sun newspaper: "His only stipulation was that they really did paint over it - and it would be his hero Christopher holding the roller."

Stephen recently revealed how he flew to the US to meet Christopher to try to convince him to be in his new comedy.

He said: "Chris doesn’t use phones and he doesn’t have a computer, so it was a bit hard to ­contact him. I ended up having this very glamorous weekend where I went to Los Angeles to go to the SAG Awards for that film 'Jojo Rabbit'.

"On the way back, someone said, ‘Chris can see you on your way home.'

"So I flew from this glamorous award ceremony to New York, and then drove up to Connecticut, and met Chris at his house. We spent hours just chewing the fat and the next thing I knew he agreed to do it."

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