'Shameless' turned down Nighy, Lucas

[Luna]

Shameless creator Paul Abbott has revealed that Bill Nighy, Matt Lucas and John Simm contacted him to ask for parts in the popular Channel 4 series.

However, he resisted their advances because he felt that guest appearances from well-known actors would harm the series' sense of realism.

He said: "I get messages from John Simm, from Matt Lucas, from Bill Nighy - people who just want to make a guest appearance, you know, for a laugh. That makes it look like we need them, but we don't need them.

"The best aspect of the show is that we started in episode one with no recognisable people... We don't need faces to sell it."

[Katy]

I think he has a point really. The most famous person in it before hand was David threlfall and he is completley unreckognisable as Frank. I think its good that its a chance for new stars to be introduced rather than having cameo guest appearences.

[tammyy2j]

"The best aspect of the show is that we started in episode one with no recognisable people... We don't need faces to sell it."


Yes he is right and now thanks to Shameless James McAvoy is a huge star

[Chloe O'brien]

He has got a point that although many of the actors were unknown they were perfect for the roles, I still would have liked to have seen Matt and Bill in shameless. It would have been a scream, Bill Nighy was crazy in Love Actually