Richard Madden reveals 'Bodyguard 2' talks in progress

Richard Madden has confirmed that he’s already in talks with Bodyguard writer Jed Mercurio about the planned second series of the hit BBC drama.

Speaking to Deadline, the Scottish ex-Game of Thrones actor added that he excited to hear what Mercurio, also the writer behind Line of Duty, could be planning for his character, PC David Budd.

“I’m going to meet Jed in a couple of weeks, to have a chat and see what’s in his brilliant brain,” he said.

“So, I’m like, what can happen next? You know, with David. Because he had a hell of a couple months there. Where do you go with this guy?

“I also thought, maybe it’s going to be like American Horror Story where, in the second series, it’s a whole different incarnation of it, and I’m a royal and Keeley [Hawes, his co-star] is on my protection team.

“And you get all the rest of the actors back, and we all do different things. But who knows what’s in Jed’s mind. I’m very keen to hear.”

While the anthology route might be an unlikely one, the second series will surely have to broach some of the larger events from series one.

“I think, you know, David Budd, he walks about London with a bomb on,” he went on.

“Everyone definitely knows his face now. He can’t really slip back into police work again. What’s his life like after that?”

He also praised the way that the show dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“The problem with PTSD is that people don’t want to talk about it. The statistic is, on average, it’s 15 years for someone to seek help for PTSD,” he said.

“That’s a huge amount of time. It was really hard to get people to talk about it. I know some ex-soldiers, and they don’t want to f**king talk about it. We had people on set who’d been in the army, and they didn’t want to talk about it.

“I had to try and come up with something with Jed, and just within my own head. Trying to work out how to pitch what’s going on for this character. And the loveliest responses to the show have been from people who’ve been affected by that. It’s such a delicate thing that I know very little about, and it’s been very underrepresented.”

In terms of ratings, the series was the biggest show the BBC has shown in over a decade, with an audience of 17 million viewers.

It is now screening in the US via Netflix to solid reviews.

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