ITV's critically-acclaimed crime drama Unforgotten returned for a fifth series a few weeks ago.
Sanjeev Bhaskar is back in the role as Detective Inspector Sunil "Sunny" Khan in the gripping cold case programme, while Sinéad Keenan joined the cast as DCI Jessica James, Sunny's new boss.
Sinead's detective has stepped in to head the unsolved crimes unit at Bishop Street police station after the tragic exit of Nicola Walker's character Cassie Stuart at the end of series four.
READ MORE: Unforgotten series five: how many episodes and full cast
Sanjeev has said the big change to the dynamics of the cast and the fictional team was a challenge for him as an actor as well as for his character, Birmingham Live reports.
He said: "It was weird, because not having Nicola there felt really odd. In a way, she is such a good and close friend, I felt slightly lost in the way that Sunny does. But the fact that it was about Cassie/Nicola made it easier to get to those places. I hope that comes across.
"Grief does affect people in deep and profound ways. And I think one of the ways that it does affect people is you do feel lost, because it’s such a mixture of different emotions. There's loss, there's regret, there's having to recalibrate what your life is. And for Sunny, all of those things, all those existential things, are sitting behind everything he does."
He added: "Outside of his daughters, Cassie was the most consistent and positive relationship he’d had. And suddenly to not have that…I've lost friends, and certainly with a couple of them, even though they passed away a long time ago now, there’s still that slight dissonance that you feel."
Sanjeev was born and raised in London and is well known for his TV roles in sitcoms, a world away from the dark and serious Unforgotten with its grim murders, gruesome corpses, chilling secrets and layers of lies. Most notably, we've seen him in the comedy series Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42, along with its later Sky1 revival as The Kumars.
He also appeared in sitcoms Mumbai Calling, on ITV, and Small Potatoes, for Channel 4, along with starring in BBC comedy drama The Indian Doctor. The actor is married to his regular co-star Meera Syal and they have a son, Shaan.
Meera rose to fame appearing alongside Sanjeev in Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42, playing his grandson in the latter. The couple had been together for two years when they wed in a quiet, family-only ceremony in Lichfield, Staffordshire, in January 2005.
They'd then known each other for more than a decade, having first worked together on Goodness Gracious Me. Meera, who grew up in Bloxwich and Essington, went to Queen Mary's High School in Walsall, recalling in an interview how she was "the only Asian girl in a very white, working-class area so I stood out a lot."
With a number of awards to her name, she has also appeared in the film Beautiful Thing and has a host of writing credits for theatre, film, radio and TV, along with her own novels. Her other TV acting roles include Broadchurch, Holby City, and Amazon Prime's recent serial killer drama The Devil's Hour.
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