' It's my first and only time', admits Douglas Henshall quietly, 'and I'll never do it again'. C4 producers had asked him to grow a beard.
Psychos actor Dougie is in an adaptation of Anna Karenina , currently shooting in chilly Poland: and for now he's almost glad of the extra hair.
But does it make him look more attractive? 'No', he sighs, 'I look like a tramp. People come up and give me their small change.'
Dougie, currently starring on C4 in Kid in the Corner, may be visiting friends in St. Petersburg come the Millennium. 'I don't want to be in London. The pressure to have a better time than everybody else is terrible. The busiest folk are going to be the Samaritans'.
( unmissabletv November 1999)
Dougie Henshall dances with the wolves in Poland
Top Scottish actor Dougie Henshall star of Psychos and This Years Love, says he loved the eerie sounds of rural Poland on the set of Anna Karenina.
'Och, I wanted to live at the farmhouse! There's still wolves and bears in the forests. At night, you's hear this howling in the distance. It was magic.
' We'd ask ourselves how long we could stay before we had to get back to Soho', the flame haired actor says all misty-eyed.
'i'd say about two weeks! Then it'd be " Oh b****cks get me back to Soho."
Henshall plays the lonely unlucky-in-love farmer Levin in C4's adaptation of adultery and passion in upper-clas 19th Century Russia, which starts on Tuesday, May 9.
Does he see any parallel with the character he played? 'I'm desperately lonely myself, he says with a truckload of insincerity. 'It's great if that comes across'.
(unmissabletv April 2000)