Actor Mark Bonnar shares the secrets to his happy, long-lasting marriage
Watch: Mark Bonnar, Actor, speaks out about 15 years of marriage with Lucy Gaskell.
Mark Bonnar has starred in some of Britain’s biggest shows, including BBC’s Shetland and Line Of Duty. This month, he appears in Amazon Prime’s supernatural thriller, The Rig.
Yet, alongside TV success, it is his marriage to BBC’s Cutting It actress Lucy Gaskell that the Scottish actor lists as one of his biggest achievements.
“It was our 15 year wedding anniversary [in] He told Kate Thornton that December was his favorite month on the podcast White Wine Question Time. “I could not believe it was 15 year since we were celebrating. I still feel so much love when I look at her, which is an amazing thing to feel.
Bonnar described his wife as “the most incredible human I’ve ever met”. “She’s really been a great teacher to me about love, life, and caring and commitment.
The couple met in 2003 during a stage production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and married four years later. The couple now live in Hertfordshire, with their children Samuel, 11 and Martha, 7.
Bonnar explained to Thornton that part of their success was their “saying thank-you” to one another.
He said, “Gratitude is an important thing.” “It’s showing respect for another person.” He shared that he and Gaskell had “always taken the time to show our kids that we value each other.” [and] “What we do together in our daily lives.”
Both of them have to manage their family lives and filming TV shows. Bonnar claimed that Shetland was the only one who had been absent from filming for “over the course 10 years”, seven series of the BBC’s detective series.
Thornton said that it was difficult to be away from your family, especially when you have children. “Lucy has to take on that burden… she’s been incredible.”
Listen to the complete episode to hear Mark Bonnar talk about how he keeps his relationship alive, handles career knockbacks and the challenges that come with working from home.
Bonnar does not take his achievements for granted, despite their immense success.
He said that it was at six months old when Marta became pregnant that he left his theatre career to make a living supporting his family.
“Theatre doesn’t pay really, you know, it earns you just enough to kind of dot the Is and cross the Ts,” he told Thornton. “But if want to, you know, buy a house or, or buy a slightly bigger house for your children… I thought I’d better earn some money pronto.”
His “first big job” was in 2009 as a detective for BBC science fiction drama Paradox with Tamzin outhwaite. However, work dried up quickly afterwards.
Bonnar claimed that there was virtually nothing for nine months. Bonnar wondered if he was suitable for the medium.
“I always thought there was a secret to telly acting or acting on camera… there’s something that people have that I don’t have, you know?”
He was mistaken.
Bonnar’s breakthrough came in 2014, with a standout role as DCC Michael Dryden in BBC1’s Line of Duty. It was a role, however, that nearly didn’t happen.
“If you get this, it is a real game changer, it’ll really change your life,” Bonnar recalls his agent telling him.
However, at a meeting to discuss the part, Bonnar spotted actor Robert Lindsay talking to the show’s casting director. “I was like, ‘Oh, OK, well he’s going to get it’ – and he did.”
Bonnar was able to get a call a few months later to inform him that Lindsay had withdrawn.
“I started work on the Monday,” said Bonnar, “in a cathedral in front of like, hundreds of extras doing a speech about a colleague we’d lost – so it was in at the deep end.”
A role in Channel 4’s comedy sitcom Catastrophe followed in 2015. In it he played Chris, the acerbic friend of Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney’s fictional couple. It finally shot Bonnar’s TV star into orbit.
Since then, the roles have been non-stop, including a recent part in ITVX’s drama Litvinenko.
“I was in Malta at beginning of the year. I was also in Belfast during the summer. Then I was in Glasgow for the third series. [BBC’s] Thornton said he was guilty.
Continue reading: Mark Bonnar Scottish crime thriller ‘Guilt’ gets third and final series
Bonnar has taken a three-month sabbatical in order to spend more time with Gaskell, their children, and Gaskell. “I don’t like being away from home,” he said. “I need to be with my family… because I miss it.”
“Even if you’re away for like four or five days,” he continued, “you still get back and think there’s little changes you can see… and you go… ‘I missed that’.”
Continue reading: The cast of Amazon’s The Rig on filming in Edinburgh and the perils on set
Bonnar described taking a leave from work as terrifying. He admitted that actors, no matter their profile, do not have any guarantees.
“I made a tape [audition] for something before Christmas I’d really love to do, and I’m thinking, ‘That’s gone, that’s a shame,'” he revealed. “These things still occur.”
He wants to be with his family for “a sustained time” and is looking forward to doing “practical things” in the home.
“Samuel loves Minecraft so… I stencilled Minecraft clouds on the ceiling.” He’s also putting up “LED lights that Martha got for Christmas”, gestures that Bonnar describes as “love letters” to his family.
He revealed that his 15-year-old wife Lucy drinks a cup of Lucy tea every morning. “I like to do it. It’s just the wee things, isn’t it?”