Martin Compston has insisted another series of 'Line of Duty' is "a way off".
Martin Compston has warned Line of Duty won't be back any time soon
The 40-year-old actor played Detective Inspector Steve Arnott on the hit BBC police drama from 2012 until 2021 and while it was recently reported a seventh season is in the pipeline, he admitted it isn't easy to align the schedules of himself and co-stars Adrian Dunbar and Vicky McClure.
He told The Sun newspaper's TVMag: "Everybody's got stuff going on at the minute, so I think anything, unfortunately, would be a way off.
"You know, the day people stop asking about the show will be a sad day, so I’m delighted that people are still excited about it.
"We'd all love to work together again at some point. We still all meet up.
"I met with Jed [Mercurio, the show’s creator], Adrian and Vicky in London before Christmas - we went out for dinner, to hear what everyone’s up to."
Martin loves how hooked people get on the storylines from the police corruption drama.
He said: “It's amazing. It's the best feeling as an actor when you feel like the whole country’s in the palm of your hand with what’s coming next, and there's only a couple of you in that secret of who's surviving and what's going on."
However, the Scottish actor insisted showrunner Jed won't just make new episodes to capitalise on its popularity as it would only return "for the right reasons".
He said: "But because we're all so close and we all want the best for the show, we wouldn't do it again just for the sake of it.
"If it was just about doing it for the sake of it, we'd have probably done another three series by now.
"We really care about the quality of it. So if we come back, it would be for the right reasons.
"It won’t just be: ‘Get another one done.’ It'll be because Jed thinks there's a story to tell."
Martin has complete confidence in Jed and knows that the writer will make the decision whether the drama makes a comeback, but admitted he and his co-stars would be "gutted" if he decided to kill any of them off.
He previously said: "I trust Jed implicitly and, if he decided it wasn’t right for it to come back, then so be it. If he decided to kill any of us off, we’d be gutted.
"We’d only do it for what’s best for the show, and if that was his decision, then that would be it."
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