I TALK TO Alexander Arnold

A few days ago I caught up with Alexander Arnold (Skins) who plays Adam Moss in What Remains to find out what it was like playing him and working with such a great cast.

I'm not sure about you but for the past two weeks my Sunday night telly watching has been completely taken over by a brilliant new series on BBC One called What Remains, the series that saw David Threlfall, best known for playing Frank Gallagher in Shameless, transform himself into Detective Inspector Len Harper - miles apart from the character we know and love him for.

We're halfway through What Remains now, but for those who haven't seen it yet, what's it all about?

I guess it's a whodunit, a thriller, and it follows David Threlfall's character who's a retired Police Detective. It's all set in this house where the remains of a body are found in the loft - a young woman called Melissa.

Why hasn't anybody noticed her body for two years? Why are the neighbours so isolated from her and what brought her up to that loft and how everyone in that house affected her. It's really well written and it's got a really great cast.

What was it like working with people like David Threlfall, Russell Tovey and Steven Mackintosh?

It was brilliant. I didn't really work with Russell but I did meet him and he's a really great guy, lovely down to earth person. 

The majority of my stuff was with Steven who's a fantastic actor. I think he's great. He's very raw and very honest. I think the father and son thing rubbed off in the respect that I kind of looked up to him as an actor. Hopefully some of that has rubbed off into the father and son relationship. 

Just watching them was great. I've got some terrific scenes with Claudie (Blakley, who plays Patricia). 

David as well, it's very inspiring to see someone who you see as Frank Gallagher (in Shameless) and then he turns up and he's a completely different person you know. He's great, he's a chameleon you know. It's inspiring for a young actor like myself to see that in action and be able to learn from that I guess.

You play Adam Moss, how would you best describe him?

Adam I guess, comes across as quite cocky, arrogant, maybe a bit sulky - but hopefully people come to understand that Adam has some justification as to why he is the way he is. Obviously that's the idea of the story, that there are layers to people, it's not just what's on the surface. You begin to find out why that is through his relationship with his dad and how he interacts with people.

We saw in the last episode Adam come to face-to-face with Pauline, his father's girlfriend for the first time ever. How's that relationship going to play out? It seems as though he's got some sort of agenda there...

Well I think another thing about Adam is that he's very clever. You're right, he has kind of got an agenda.

He knows very quickly how people tick and I think he's just pressing her buttons. It was actually really tricky to play someone who's that on the ball and able to know people's ins and outs. I obviously don't want to give anything away but he's a confrontational character, let's just say that.

Have you enjoyed playing him?

Yeah, I mean like I say, it was a difficult role. It was probably the most difficult role I've had to do so far. Demanding in the respect of having to be that mean and hostile. It was demanding because It was a great experience but challenging - which is obviously what actors love to get involved with.

What's next for you then?

I've finished a film a couple of months ago called The Salvation with Mads Mikkelsen and our national treasure, Jonathan Pryce. That was a pretty amazing experience for me because that was my first film and it's a completely different environment really to television. That's a Western and that should be coming out around this time next year in October.

What Remains continues Sunday nights at 9pm on BBC One