Character: DCS Fielding
Actor: Gawn Grainger
Episode: Bad Blood

Detective Chief Superintendent Fielding is a sensitive man with a hard exterior, according to actor Gawn Grainger.

"Fielding appears to be a person of real ill temper but he's probably a very nice guy. He is fighting against himself in a way but he uses all sorts of things to block that. If you sat him in a psychiatrist's chair you would find the anger and bitterness which he has carried on his shoulder all these years."

Fielding is an old colleague of Foyle's (Michael Kitchen) who saw action in World War One. They meet again when Foyle is asked to investigate Fielding's arrest of a pacifist for murder. Eventually Fielding tells Foyle how he is still suffering the effects of a wartime gas attack.

"In some of his cases he comes across as a very hard man, but underneath he has to live with a terrible tragedy. He probably has ghastly nightmares about what happened and he's haunted by the agony and the deaths of so many friends.

"He has so many levels to him that it makes him much more interesting. You can't just jump into the role - you have to work on those layers and it gives the character much more depth.

"If I based him on anyone, it would be someone of my father's generation - a friend of my father's who worked in an office. He was outwardly gruff and I remember him as a small boy."

Gawn enjoyed a change of image to play Fielding.

"I took off my beard, as I didn't think it would work for the role, and I had quite a tidy look with brushed down hair and moustache. They gave me plain clothes as it was the 1940s and would have been all coupon stuff. I was in one of the coldest episodes so the clothes and cap came into their own."

The role gave Gawn a chance to catch up with Michael Kitchen. "Michael and I worked at the National in the 70s and I think Foyle's War is a magical series because of him. If a camera loved anybody it loves Michael."

Gawn recently appeared as an eccentric retired geography teacher in an episode of Midsomer Murders and his other credits include Dalziel and Pascoe, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Glass, Christmas Carol, When We are Married, Shadow of the Noose, Missing From Home and the feature films Love and Death on Long Island, The Raggedy Rawney and Janice Beard: 45wpm.

He is married to the actress Zoë Wanamaker and divides his time between London and a home in Wiltshire.