Unforgotten's Sanjeev Bhaskar 'still shocked' he stars in ITV detective drama

Yahoo

10-02-2025

Unforgotten star Sanjeev Bhaskar has admitted that despite having starred in six series of the hit ITV drama, he is still shocked to have landed a lead role in a serious show.
Comedian Bhaskar is known for sketch show Goodness Gracious Me and sitcom The Kumars at No. 42, but plays a detective tortured by plenty of personal tragedy as well as some grim murder cases in Unforgotten.
Following series six's return to ITV on Sunday, he told This Morning why he was as surprised as anyone else that he had been cast in the role.
Asked about his career as a comedian leading to a dramatic role in Unforgotten as DI Sunny Khan, Bhaskar admitted: "I'm still slightly shocked I'm in it. It took me two series before I asked (creator) Chris Lang why he'd cast me because I thought if I asked him before that, he might just say, 'oh my goodness, we've made a terrible mistake, you're absolutely right'.
"So yeah, I was surprised, and one of the things Chris said to me about casting was that if you had comedy timing - which you can't teach, it's impossible to teach it – and you could apply that timing to drama, you've got everything covered. You can do the light stuff and you can do the more serious stuff.
"All of the cast, past and present, they all have the ability to do comedy."
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His co-star Sinead Keenan joined Unforgotten as DCI Jess James after original star Nicola Walker's character DCI Cassie Stuart was killed off, and Keenan said that she also had reservations about taking the role.
Telling how auditions were offered to her and two other actors, she said: "I thought that was so lovely and kind, thank you so much, but absolutely not. Nicola is so brilliant that I thought whoever does that is going to be peeing against the proverbial. But then my agent convinced me to read it."
Asked who the other two actors up for the part were, she said: "I couldn't possibly comment."
Despite being on his sixth series as a detective, Bhaskar said he had got no better at working out who the murderer was in each storyline, which is notoriously packed with twists and turns.
Asked if he was any better at viewers than working it out, he said: "Oh no no, I think I'm slightly worse. I've got the script in front of me so I can reread the pages and I still don't get it. It's testament to Chris's (Lang) writing that even I, after six series, turning the pages and trying to guess who it is, still get it wrong. If I get it right it's completely the wrong reasons."
He added of Sunny this series: "He's not dating, but he's on the market. I think he's a little more hopeful. He was carrying a lot of grief and stress in the previous series so I think he's emerged from that. I think he is in a better place, a more hopeful place."
Unforgotten fans will be familiar with DI Sunny Khan's backpack, which the character is rarely seen without – and Bhaskar even posts on social media after episodes to reveal what was inside the bag that week.
He shared how he had asked the costume department to keep what they'd filled it with each time a secret, so that he could be surprised after filming.
Bhaskar said of the backpack: "When I chose it, it was just something to carry stuff in – it's practical, he had kids, it became this thing. From the second series onwards I got the costume department to fill it with anything they wanted and I promised I wouldn't look at the contents until the end of the day. So when I'm carrying around the backpack in those scenes, I have no idea what's in them."
So find out what I was unknowingly carrying around in a new #sunnysbackpack post on @WeAre8Official tonight after Ep1 of #UnforgottenI'll post another backpack pic tomorrow night after Ep2. Hope you enjoy the show 🙏🏽♥️ pic.twitter.com/D4oSFH5qNp
— Sanjeev Bhaskar💙 (@TVSanjeev) February 9, 2025
Keenan and Bhaskar both praised show creator Chris Lang's writing on the show as Keenan explained the format each episode takes: "We're introduced to four disparate people and you wonder how in the name of god are they connected. Then slowly but surely we find out how they may have been connected to the victim and solve the crime."
Bhaskar added: "I always believe that there were four mini dramas sitting within a whodunnit every single time. Each of those stories is so rich that they could be a series on their own. We could easily see six episodes of their lives. It's usually a normal member of society who's done one terrible thing as opposed to a serial killer on the loose. That's more relatable."
This Morning airs on ITV1 at 10am on weekdays.