Aidan Turner was 'terrified' filming stunts for The Suspect

Aidan Turner says filming the tower block stunt in 'The Suspect' was "terrifying".

The 39-year-old actor stars as psychologist Dr. Joseph O’Loughlin - who becomes entangled in a web of lies when he is faced with a troubled young patient and a murder victim - in the upcoming ITV drama series based on the books by Michael Robotham, and he admitted when he filmed the opening scene where his character considers jumping off a bridge, he was genuinely scared because he struggles with heights.

He said: "I'm not good with heights. And we're still quite high up, which is great when you do these things because you could just infiltrate your own real emotion.

"Playing fear, or dialing that up… if there wasn't a height, if you're doing a green screen thing, for instance, I mean, they're really tricky, Because to try to evoke that emotion from yourself, it's harder, you tend to overcook it."

The former 'Poldark' star went on to explain that any shrieks heard in the opening scene of the thriller are genuine but called it a "great introduction" to the character and a good way to start the series.

He told RadioTimes.com: "Those shrieks or whatever I'm doing in the scene are real. It was kind of scary, but it still felt very safe, which is great. I think it's a great introduction for the character too. And it's a great way to start." .

Meanwhile, director James Strong admitted that putting the opening scene together was "quite complicated" because he wanted to try to film as much of it as if it were real.

He said: "You just take it apart and look at all the different elements and it is about constructing the jigsaw. All the different pieces of… where we can have Aidan for real, where’s it got to be the stunt team, where's it got to be green screen and all those little elements, and what the VFX can give us, credibly, that you believe, and can kind of sell the sequence.

"We did actually do as much of it as we could for real, so we were hanging people off that huge building in Paddington.

"So I think when you've got that real base then it helps sell it. But it's a complicated sequence of all those different elements that come together."

'The Suspect' is set to air on ITV in late 2022.