James Nesbitt: I resisted new Cold Feet for years but it’s as good as original

James Nesbitt has revealed that he was “very resistant” to the revival of Cold Feet because of success of the original series.

The show became ITV’s most successful drama launch last year, with the first episode attracting an audience of 8.4 million when it returned after a 13-year hiatus.

Nesbitt, who plays Adam, revealed the cast had gone through their first script reading yesterday as it prepares to return for another series this year.

Speaking at Dunhill and Dylan Jones’s pre-Bafta dinner last night, he said: “They had tried to bring it back for years. But because it was so successful, I had been so resistant to it. And then my agent sent me the script and it looked so good.

“My main worry was, ‘Would it be as original as it was 20 years ago?’ And I think it was.

"It had real characters doing real things that people could really relate to. The original DNA of Cold Feet was still there.”

Nesbitt, 52, will next appear in Marvel supremo Stan Lee’s Lucky Man on Sky One, playing a detective who can control his luck by wearing a mystical bracelet.

He said: “Certainly in my career I’ve been very lucky. I came from Northern Ireland at a time where things were very, very bad but there were a lot of dramas being written about Northern Ireland. And so I was able to get into them.

“The thing about Stan Lee — he invented all those Marvel characters but the one power he told me he would love to have is the ability to control luck.”

Other guests at the party at Bourdon House in Mayfair included Mark Strong, Aidan Turner, Tom Hollander, Cressida Bonas, Toby Jones, Freddie Fox, Hayley Squires and Stanley Tucci.