Robert Glenister talks 'shameless nepotism' of son appearing as his younger self in 'Sherwood'

Robert Glenister has spoken about the "shamelessly nepotistic" good work he put in for his own son to play his younger self in BBC drama Sherwood.

The new BBC One series inspired by two real-life murders that further divided an already broken former mining community in Nottingham stars Hustle actor Glenister as Detective Inspector Kevin Salisbury.

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Sherwood features an all-star cast including David Morrissey, Lesley Manville, Joanne Froggatt, Alun Armstrong, Adeel Akhtar, Claire Rushbrook, Kevin Doyle and Stephen Tompkinson.

But when the script called for a younger actor who looked convincingly like him to play his character's younger self in flashback scenes, Glenister knew just the man for the job.

Talking about son Tom getting the part, he said: "I just thought, and I know I'm his dad, but I think he's a terrific actor. I think he's got something special. I contacted (Sherwood creator) James Graham initially about Tom and I said, 'Look, this is this is shamelessly nepotistic, but my boy has been out of drama school three years, he's terrific. He's been working and all the rest of it, can you have a word with the powers that be and just see if they'll let him put himself on tape?'"

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However, Glenister claimed his influence only went so far, saying: "Tom did that and went up against a load of people who were up for the part, it wasn’t me saying ‘give him the gig’ or anything, he went through the process with everybody else.

"It wasn't an immediate decision, it took a while for everybody to come together and for the BBC to have a look under consideration but he got the part."

Glenister, 62, added that he had been shocked to see how alike he and his 24-year-old son looked on screen.

He said: "Previously I have thought we didn’t really look alike, I mean, there's a sort of family resemblance, but actually looking at the episodes when we were ADRing them [Addition Dialogue Recording] I was looking at me, and looking at Tom, and yes he's got more hair, he hasn't got beard, and he's much thinner, but we do we do sort of look alike!"

Sherwood begins on Monday, 13 June at 9pm on BBC One.

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