John Malkovich, the latest actor to bring Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot to the screen, has revealed that he was advised to turn down the role.
Malkovich, 65, stars as the famous detective in the BBCs three-part adaptation of the ABC Murders.
The Oscar-nominated actor said he had been encouraged to turn down the role by his agents.
However, after reading part of writer and executive producer Sarah Phelp's script he had decided to accept the role.
He said that he had begun taking more television roles because they offered him a better chance to develop his characters.
"I hope they won't mind me saying this, but my agency, which represents me, sent it to me and they recommended I pass," he said.
He added: "I always read 20 or 30 pages, and I loved it. Agents cannot of course read everything. They have readers etcetera, but I always read everything."
He also spoke of his and director Alex Gabassi's decision not to use the accent generally associated with the Belgian detective, instead opting for a less exaggerated tone.
He said: "(Gabassi) really wanted the accent not to be that accent that we all know. He also didn't want that look. I was working in Chicago.
"He had seen a photo of me. I had uploaded it from a couple of days before. He wanted me to look just like that."
Malkovich added that he thought it would be a "mistake" to play Poirot's foreign accent for laughs, especially in what he described as "sombre times".
He added: "That's also a very tough one for drama. To get some laughs out of (an accent).
"It's one of the pillars of English comedy, that this person has an accent, and here's why it's funny. That doesn't exist in many countries.
"But here it does. I think for (this programme), in these quite sombre times, that would just be a mistake."
The ABC Murders airs over three consecutive nights at 9pm on BBC1, starting on 26 December.
