Endeavour actor thankful to live normal life despite success of show

Endeavour star Shaun Evans has said he is thankful that the rising popularity of the TV show has not had a huge impact on his life.

The actor has had the lead in the Inspector Morse prequel since 2012, but said he does not have “a public” and prefers to just go home and live his life after filming.

Asked if the increasing popularity of the show has had an impact on him, Evans said: “No, it doesn’t, thankfully.

“That is another blessing about this job, it has very little impact on my life, which I like.”

He continued: “I’m not a person who has a public… I don’t have a Twitter feed, I’m not on social media and all that. I don’t Google myself.

“I just like to come in and do my job and then go home and crack on with my life.”

“But that being said, the increasing popularity is what enables us to come back and do some more,” he added.

Evans also told how he likes to stay fresh, so recently re-read the detective novels by Colin Dexter that the series is based on.

“You don’t want to be complacent as an actor,” he said.

“And what I don’t want, because this is an amazing job in many ways, but there’s also a danger that you become lazy with your work.

“And so I’ve always tried to push myself, to be producing or directing and to be doing things alongside and in conjunction with this, and then part of that is, again, in terms of not making it too easy for yourself, so you’re not just playing yourself, or that your shorthand, your way into something, isn’t a lazy way.”

He said: “That’s why it was important for me personally to read the books again, and be like, ‘I’d forgotten that’ or ‘I missed that’ or ‘That’s interesting’.”

“I suppose in short, keeping yourself interested in it, you’ll then keep yourself interesting,” the actor added.

Inspector Morse ran from 1987 to 2000, and Endeavour – which charts the early career of the young Endeavour Morse – started in 2012.

Endeavour returns on Sunday February 9 at 8pm on ITV.