MIDSOMER MURDERS
JOHN
HOPKINS
ON CHRISTMAS & THE FESTIVE EPISODE
John Hopkins plans to get away from it all this Christmas.
"We get a couple of weeks off filming and I normally go walking with some old school friends in the Lake District or Peak District or Wales. For years I've been doing that. It's great to get out of London, regroup with some old mates and climb mountains in the snow.
"We go in that weird hinterland between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve when otherwise you just watch James Bond movies and eat. If you catch it right you can get high up where it's clear with blue skies and snow. It's like a strange connection with all your childhood Christmases which you remember as full of snow."
Before his walking trek, however, John will be spending Christmas Day with his family. "I'll be with mum and dad, my sister and her partner and my granddad, no doubt sitting around eating quite a lot. Christmas Day is for falling asleep in front of the TV and watching MIDSOMER MURDERS. But we also have a good catch up and tell old family stories."
John enjoyed working on the Christmas special, Ghosts of Christmas Past. "As the greatest storyteller of the 19th century knew, Christmas is a perfect time for a good ghost story. The nights are darker and the fire burns low, and our film has long lost family members gathered together from far and abroad, with grudges and skeletons in cupboards all coming to a ghastly conclusion!
"The house where we filmed was full of strange breezes and sudden drops of temperature. There was talk that it was a haunted house. Quite often when you're filming in a huge, empty old house you become conscious it has an interesting history going back hundreds of years. I got a bit of that feeling when we filmed Ghosts of Christmas Past, but maybe it was just my imagination."
In January, John returns to pounding the Midsomer beat as DCI Barnaby's (John Nettles) popular new sidekick DS Dan Scott.
"We film most of the year now. You can tell the ones we shot in winter because in the exterior shots, John Nettles and I are looking stockier and bulkier than normal, thanks to our layers of thermals underneath!"
John's previous TV credits include Spooks, Love in a Cold Climate, Trial & Retribution VII and Nicholas Nickleby, while film work includes The Swimming Pool. While at the RSC, he appeared in Anthony & Cleopatra, Much Ado About Nothing, King John, Julius Caesar and Love in a Wood.