FROM Men Behaving Badly to Line of Duty and The Night Manager, Neil Morrissey has starred in some of TV’s biggest shows.
Now, as he prepares to star in BBC1 drama The Syndicate, the actor has revealed the prejudice faced in the industry by working-class stars like himself.
Neil, who was raised in a care home in Stoke-on-Trent, told the Radio Times how society’s elite still pander to the stereotype of upper-class Brits when it comes to ensuring their TV shows are a hit.
He said: “When Oxbridge people are pumping a lot of money into a production, they want their own.
“We (working-class actors) are always underrepresented, because it’s hard to sell a bunch of Northerners to an American network when they consider Brits to be slightly fey James Bond-ish types, not people who work in a factory.”
He added: “I’ve met people with a massive education and almost zero intelligence; people who’ve been through Oxbridge but don’t know how to sew a hem or boil an egg.”
In The Syndicate, Neil joins a star-studded cast including Coronation Street star Kym Marsh and Strictly finalist Joe Sugg Making his acting debut.
He will play a lovable rogue in the show, a corner-shop owner called Frank.
No-nonsense Neil will always be frank, I suspect.
