Douglas Henshall relishes the challenge of controversial roles and his latest is no exception-he plays a man accused of abusing a six-year-old child.
Relaxing at home ,there's a knock on the door and police arrest you for a serious crime. Despite your denials, it isn't long before you're facing trial- with your life and career in tatters.
This nightmare becomes a reality for Dan Whitlow in the new ITV1 drama, Loving You . An educational psychologist, he faces an accusation of sexual assault against a six-year-old girl.
Douglas Henshall, the actor who plays Dan, has had to imagine himself in some difficult circumstances during a career marked by controversial roles. But suddenly finding yourself accused of abusing a child is something else. ' It's horrible, truly horrible,' he says.' But I had to put myself in Dan's shoes- and I wanted to get out of them again pretty soon.'
Dan had been working closely with the girl accusing him of assault. The evidence against him seems so damning that even his girlfriend, divorced mother of two Chloe Langdon ( Niamh Cusack), begins to doubt his innocence.
'That's one of the saddest aspects of the whole story,' reckons Douglas,38. 'Dan and Chloe are well-matched people who genuinely love each other but are torn apart by the accusation. The drama is as much about their relationship as about the crme he is said to have committed.'
For Scotsman Douglas, it's another role to make up and make people sit up and take notice. Like a Celtic version of Christopher Eccleston, he has studiously avoided soaps and soft dramas. As long ago as 1993, he was the violently-inclined Corporal Peter Berry in Dennis Potter's Lipstick on Your Collar. Two years later, he wsa the incestuous brother of Patsy Kensit in the film Angels and Insects.
And, more recently, Douglas appeared in a couple of thought-provoking C4 offerings- as the psychiatrist with as many problems as his patience in Psychos and as the father who beat up his autistic son in Kid in the Corner. So no easy rides for Douglas then?
'Easy rides are the last thing I want,he says.' To keep playing the same kind of characters, month in, month out, would drive me mad. I am always striving to do something that's totally different from what I've done before. But it's not that easy to find a script that's as good as the one for Loving You. So much TV is formalaic, predictable rubbish.'
Off-screen Douglas is single lives in south London and was once romantically linked with supermodel Sophie Dahl-although it's not a subject he cares to discuss. He passes his leisure time playing tennis, watching Chelsea ( he has the unfulfiled ambition to be a footie commentator)- and cooking.
The son of a magazine publisher and a nurse, he was the youngest of three children brought up in the town of Barrhead near Glasgow.
His siblings have provided him with six nieces and nephews and time spent with them has made it easy to bond with the children of his character's girlfriend in Loving You.
'' Dan is actually very good with kids-which is why he makes a first-class educational psychologist. I wanted to show that ease of ralationship. Thinking about how welll I get on with the kids in my own family definitely helped.'