BBC Death in Paradise's Ben Miller admits 'driving producers mad’ with backstage demands
Former Death in Paradise detective Ben Miller has starred as the titular character on the ITV crime drama, Professor T, since July 2021.
Ben Miller has opened up about the demands he has when it comes to his character’s outfits. The former Death in Paradise star admitted in a new interview that he often struggles to find his feet with a role if the costume isn’t nailed down.
The 58-year-old is due to star in the third season of Professor T - an ITV crime drama shot in Belgium and Cambridge. The actor portrays the titular character Professor Jasper Tempest, a criminologist at the University of Cambridge with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Jasper is considered a genius and is usually on hand to assist the likes of DI Lisa Donckers (played by Emma Naomi) DS Dan Winters (Barney White) and DI Paul Rabbit (Andy Gathergood) with various crime cases. As Professor T gears up for its third instalment, Ben has opened up about his acting struggles.
When asked by Radio Times whether costume is “important in helping” him discover a character, the father-of-three replied: “Enormously. I don’t really know what I’m doing until I find the right costume, which tends to drive my producers mad.
“I’m trying to find a hat at the moment for the fourth season of Professor T,” the actor revealed. “It really helps in the way that he holds himself, as he has a unique physicality.”
However, Ben admitted that his ability to portray a range of characters always comes back to him when he has a suit and a pair of shoes on.
”With a lot of characters it’s all about the shoes,” he revealed.
Elsewhere in the interview, Ben announced that he feels more in tune with his Professor T character, as opposed to Death in Paradise’s DI Richard Poole.
Ben portrayed the eccentric detective inspector between 2011 and 2014 on the BBC show but returned in 2021 to make a brief guest cameo in season 10.
“I’d love being in the Caribbean myself, I had a great time there – I wasn’t like Richard Poole complaining about being in the sun all the time,” he explained.
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“So I’m probably closest to Professor T – that’s a life I very nearly lived, but for one sliding door.”
Ben added that he could have “easily found” himself working in the world of academia and cutting a solitary figure much like his character.
Before pursuing acting, Ben was reading for a PhD in solid-state physics.
However, he soon abandoned his studies at St Catharine’s College in Cambridge to pursue a comedy career.
The third series of Professor T is set to air across ITV1 and ITVX at 9pm on 27 March 2024.
