Ralf Little wants to play a villain.
Ralf Little wants to play a villain
The 44-year-old actor has just left ‘Death in Paradise’ after four years playing DI Neville Parker and now he’s ready to take on something very different to the “nice guys” he usually portrays on screen.
He told Big Issue magazine: “I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and do more things that scare me or that I maybe feel a bit intimidated by.
“And I’d love to play a villain.
“It would be so nice to just play someone horrible – I’ve spent my whole career playing nice guys. I want to surprise myself.”
Ralf hopes his ‘Death in Paradise’ stint has changed how he is perceived because he has spent so long being associated with ‘The Royle Family’, in which he played Antony from 1998 to 2012.
Asked if he thinks playing Neville has changed how people see him, he said: “Massively. I’ve had such a varied career and done so much, but ‘The Royle Family’ was so iconic and souch a touchstone of the cultural landscape that it’s only natural people are still talking about it.
“And I welcome that, because I loved every moment of it.
“But now people are talking about ‘Death in Paradise’ just as much.
“That evolution feels very satisfying. It’s the next step of my life.
“I was a kid when I did ‘The Royle Family’. I’m a middle-aged man now.”
The actor relished the chance to take on the “incredible challenge” of leading a show for the first time with ‘Death in Paradise’.
He said: “I’ve been incredibly lucky to have the career I’ve had. But until I was 39 years old, everything I had been in that had been a success was a big ensemble show.
“Leading a show is a big responsibility and I’d never had the chance to shoulder that so you never know if you can do it.
“No one took the gamble on me before.
“’Death in Paradise’ is beloved by millions. I was a fan before I went in.
“So it was an incredible challenge and unbelievably daunting.
“But it was so satisfying and exciting to make it work.
“Also, it didn’t hurt that I was doing it in the Caribbean.”
Tagged in Ralf Little