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PARTY ANIMAL OFF DUTY
HIS character is a straight-laced cop who dresses like Gareth Southgate, has a squeakier voice than David Beckham and is a flop in the bedroom.
But if anyone in Line Of Duty is hiding a secret identity, it is actor Martin Compston.
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Behind the scenes of the hit BBC1 cop drama, the Scot, who plays DS Steve Arnott, likes nothing more than sinking a few pints with his co-stars and rock-star pals.
As one close friend revealed: “Martin is always the last one standing at parties. He’s a proper old-school caner and always has a beer in his hand.
“He’s the life and soul of every get- together, especially when he returns home to Scotland.”
The 34-year-old, who last year played Lord Bothwell opposite Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie in Mary Queen Of Scots, is the rising star of British acting — and the man Line Of Duty writer Jed Mercurio is so keen to tie down for future series, not that he likes to admit it.
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But Martin’s pal continues: “He’s still completely grounded. You would never know he was a superstar when he’s back home among the group.”
A flick through his phone book would quickly shed light on the celebrity circles he moves in.
He is mates with Bodyguard hunk Richard Madden, 32, and Leicester rockers Kasabian, who he has partied with on tour, and rented a flat with fellow Scot Kyle Falconer, frontman of The View, in the early days of his acting career.
Martin was also spotted crowd-surfing at a Slaves gig in London in 2017, and joined Noel Gallagher on stage at the T In The Park festival in 2015 — not that the Oasis star knew much about it.
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Footage posted on Instagram showed him conducting Noel’s orchestra.
The pair met at the Scottish Style Awards two years earlier, when Martin was named Most Stylish Male. Noel’s wife, Sara MacDonald, 47, won Most Stylish Female.
He is not afraid of an impromptu musical performance — it was how he got together with American wife Tianna Chanel Flynn.
They met at the Hudson hotel in LA, where Tianna, 32, was a nightclub manager at the time. Hearing of her Irish heritage, Martin delivered a medley of Irish songs to charm her.
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They married at the Compston family chapel in Greenock, Renfrew, in 2016. Tianna was walked down the aisle by her Irish father, a former soldier, and her American stepdad.
The couple have since settled down in Las Vegas, where Tianna is based, with Martin still able to get to auditions in LA, 270 miles away, relatively easily.
It is also practical for future childcare as Tianna’s mum Sissy — a celebrated member of the US Air Force — lives two streets away from their £300,000, four-bed property.
Speaking last month, he said: “We’re getting to the point of maybe starting a family and your wife needs her family around her.”
Line of Duty star Martin Compston asks 'why does no one believe I'm Scottish?' as he gears up for Soccer Aid
QUIET MAN OF TV'S HIT COP DRAMA
Tianna, an aspiring actress currently working as an estate agent, regularly joins her husband when he is working in the UK. She even made a cameo appearance in the first episode of the current series of Line Of Duty, popping up on a dating app DS Arnott had subscribed to.
Their life in Vegas is not as glamorous as you might imagine.
Martin gets paid £250,000 per series for Line Of Duty but, owing to US tax laws, that is significantly reduced.
But there was enough in the coffers to pay for a Tennent’s lager tap in his home bar and a swimming pool.
He said: “It’s an incredible feeling when you’re from Greenock and you can get your family over to stay and you’ve got a pool out your back.
“The most therapeutic thing in the world is cleaning your pool — walking about mopping up leaves.”
His fee will no doubt be discussed when negotiating terms of a new two-series deal offered by Line Of Duty bosses, which writer Jed is determined to play down to prevent any spoilers.
Sources close to Martin have confirmed the offer has been made.
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His continued association with the cop drama will be appreciated by cast and crew alike — and not just because he is good drinking company for co-stars Vicky McClure, Adrian Dunbar and Stephen Graham after shooting ends.
A show insider said: “He learns every cast member’s lines, as well as his own, and speaks in DS Arnott’s English accent until filming is wrapped.
“He’s also known as the man to go to on set if there’s any problems. He’s like the daddy on set, despite his relatively young age.”
Martin earned the respect of his peers for the unconventional route he took to get into acting, which did not involve any form of acting school. He landed his breakthrough role in Ken Loach’s coming-of-age movie Sweet Sixteen after producers visited his St Columba’s High School in Gourock to cast local kids.
But it was only after the intervention of his PE teacher Joe Harkins that Martin made his audition.
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Joe, 62, says: “Martin didn’t turn up when he was supposed to be there. I’d known him since he was a wee boy and I knew he lived just up the road from the school.
“I went out looking for him — I was prepared to go to his door to get him. I met him on his way home. I said, ‘Come on, you’re meant to be in at that audition’. He said, ‘I’m not going’.
“It wasn’t that I saw a great acting ability in him, I just thought it would look bad for the school if he didn’t go. I said, ‘Just go in and enjoy it’. The rest is history.
“I’m so proud of everything he’s achieved, although it’s strange seeing him doing that English accent on the telly.”
Am I going to choose football or acting?
Martin Compston
One of the reasons he planned to miss the audition was to focus on becoming a professional footballer.
Encouraged by mum Liz and dad Jim, who is a former shipyard worker in Greenoch affectionately known as Jimba, he dreamed of playing for his beloved Celtic and claims football stopped him getting into drugs.
Martin, who wears No67 on his shirt for charity football matches in a nod to the year the Glasgow club became the first British side to lift the European Cup, said: “‘When I saw others getting into drugs I was never tempted.
“Football kept me clean. Even when I saw folk my age with money and flash cars from selling the stuff, I knew it wasn’t for me. The game was always more important.” Before Sweet Sixteen he was on the books at Aberdeen alongside brothers Derek and Darren Young, who went on to have established careers with the club and were both capped at Scotland U21 level.
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Martin later signed for Greenock Morton, going on to make two substitute appearances for the then Scottish Second Division club but unable to prevent 4-0 defeats on both occasions.
On weighing up which profession to go for, he said: “I was lucky enough to have a glimpse of a dream for a year, so it was a big decision at the time — am I going to choose football or acting?
“But it wasn’t a choice between Manchester United and Spider-Man.
“It was a choice between one more year at Morton or being an unemployed actor.”
Cleaning the pool is therapeutic
Martin Compston
Following the success of Sweet Sixteen, which earned him the most promising newcomer at the 2002 British Independent Film Awards, he had to be patient before landing his first big role, as Ewan Brodie in BBC series Monarch Of The Glen. It was on the drama that he was taken under the wing of acting legends Tom Baker, a former Doctor Who star, and the late Richard Briers, star of Seventies sitcom The Good Life. They even made him tea in his trailer.
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The series led to roles in independent movies including 2006’s Red Road and The Damned United in 2009, where he played Leeds and Scotland striker John O’Hare.
But it was his casting in Line Of Duty which propelled him into the limelight, starring in the very first series on BBC2 in 2012, surviving Jed’s cull to lead police corruption unit AC-12 into its fifth series, which ends on Sunday.
He said: “I never thought anybody would trust me to lead a prime-time BBC drama.
“I didn’t think that I was the kind of guy that middle England would respond to.”
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