Coldwater star Andrew Lincoln reveals how his children inspired return to British screens

I've got two teenage children and have done quite a long shift away in America. They go to school here, so I thought it was time that I sort of shamed my teenagers on national television in my own country. 

Let's make them squirm as much as possible with a shower scene at nine o'clock on ITV. I was doing the school run and told my son [about that]. He just put his head on the dashboard and went, 'No', and made this sort of whale sound. 

There were options to go back to America and do other things, but it was just one of these scripts that was really interesting. I’m also producing it, and having a little bit of influence on the cast – then we got incredibly lucky with this extraordinary ensemble. We have some of the best actors who I've always wanted to work with. 

Well, it's very much autobiographical. This weak, pathetic man is very much me, or at least that's perhaps who I once was, and he becomes, hopefully, more heroic by the end of the series. And hopefully I have as well. I wrote most of the first episode in 2020, which was obviously a very strange year for everyone. I was having trouble sleeping, I was obsessively running and reading lots of true crime books. I just had this idea. I thought I'd really like to write a really great thriller, possibly quite violent, about a man who's in a violent situation and out of his depth. 

I love the script. It made me laugh in all the wrong places, made me squirm with recognition, and constantly surprised me with the unpredictability of the characters. But it made me scared as well. I was quite scared about playing a character that was so unpleasant and weak and emasculated, and I wasn't quite sure tonally where it sat. 

So I said no twice. Then I had a lovely chat with the screenwriter David [Ireland] and couldn't walk away from it. I love working, but I also love not working. I said this to Toby Jones [the actor] a long time ago. I told him, 'You've got to learn to say no. It's empowering'. Then I get into the habit of saying no to things. But then I just met everybody and thought, 'Let's break some windows.'

Everybody seems to be watching [Love Actually] at Christmas but The Walking Dead is, I would say, the key thing. If I grow my beard, I turn into Rick Grimes. I thought when I shaved, it was great, because no one really knows me. But it's really lovely to be back, and really lovely to be working back in the UK. I forgot how brilliantly talented everybody is and how people come with so many brilliant ideas. It was such fun doing this.”