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A Touch of Frost star David Jason talks daughter Sophie's childhood 

The actor is the subject of a new documentary, David Jason: Britain's Favourite TV Star

david jason sophie
Emmy Griffiths
TV & Film Editor
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David Jason, 80, welcomed his now-teenage daughter Sophie when he was 61, and opened up about her childhood in a previous interview.

MORE: David Jason candidly talks today's TV going in a 'downward spiral' direction

Speaking to The Telegraph back in 2008 when Sophie was just eight years old, he joked that he had become curmudgeonly, saying: "I never thought I would. My father used to say, 'What the hell are you listening to? Put that bloody rubbish off.'

"And it was The Beatles, [but Sophie will] be watching Hannah Montana, and I hear myself saying, ‘What’s that rubbish you’re watching?'"

david family

David with his family, Gill and Sophie

He added that his wife, Gill, persuaded him to take breaks between work to spend more time with  his daughter, saying: "I was told by the female department, ‘You must stop this, you’re not spending enough time at home with your small child.' So now I have two months at least between projects." 

The A Touch of Frost actor opened up about how becoming a dad at an older age impacted him, telling The Telegraph back in 2019: "I suppose the thing that you miss, perhaps, is being able to do all the things a younger father would do with their child.

MORE: Who is David Jason married to? All you need to know

MORE: A Touch of Frost star David Jason's latest project revealed

MORE: Remembering Only Fools and Horses castmates who sadly died

david shopie

Sophie is now 19 years old

"But Sophie is lovely – when she was a baby and a small child, she was so funny, it was sheer delight. I still call her 'the warf', because she loved Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but she couldn't say the 'D'. Even now, I'll say, 'Where's the warfling?', and my wife will say, 'Oh, she's gone out.'"

David and Gill tied the knot in 2005 after meeting on a TV set back in 1995. They were wed in secret, with Gill telling the Manchester Evening News: "We got married yesterday at The Dorchester in a most beautiful suite. It was intimate and very romantic. Some of the guests didn't even know. It was a very low-key surprise."

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