Wild At Heart Wild at Heart's Deon: 'Dup's naughty, but not bad'

Wild at Heart's Deon Stewardson chats about his wayward character, loveable rogue Anders Du Plessis...

Du Plessis is convinced Danny murdered their old enemy, Christian Peeters. Is the strain beginning to show?
"Dup thinks Peeters has come back as a vulture and haunting him! When Dup found Peeters' body he thought that Danny killed him. So he buried the body in order to protect his friend. Now the storyline gets very serious as the police are looking for Peeters."

How did you find working with a vulture?
"During the filming the vulture was flying about and I didn't quite know what to do. It's not a little vulture, it's big! I wasn't that keen on getting that close to it because you never know what a vulture's going to do."

In the show you're married to Hayley Mills. What is she like to work with?
"Hayley is great fun and we get along very well. Dup and Caroline's relationship is very sweet, they're a great couple. It shows that no matter how old you are, you can still meet someone and find love."

What is it you like about playing Dup?
"I like how he can look himself in the mirror in the morning because, even if he does naughty things, he never does bad things. He's an honourable person and a tremendous character. He doesn't read books, but he's smart in a bushcraft way. He knows about life."

In the last series we saw Dup running around naked. Was that actually you or a body double?
"It was actually me! They tried to get me to wear a hysterical looking triangle of cloth, but I refused and just did it!"

Wild at Heart screens on Sunday evenings on ITV1