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LOS ANGELES TIMES

At first, actor hadn't a clue how to resume being Poirot

By Susan King

HOLLYWOOD - After a five-year hiatus, David Suchet was thrilled to reprise his popular role as Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's brilliant and eccentric Belgian detective, in the new A&E movie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, premiering Sunday.

In fact, the British actor thought it would be a snap to get back into Poirot's shoes, having played the legendary sleuth on TV for more than six years. But that wasn't the case.

"It was strange," Suchet said by phone from New York, where he is appearing on Broadway as Mozart's nemesis, Salieri, in Amadeus.

"I thought it would fit very easily, but it just didn't," he admitted. "I couldn't find the voice. I couldn't find the walk. I said, 'What the hell is going on here?' "

Luckily, Suchet started preparing for the movie long before production began. "I went back to the drawing board and watched some videotapes [of the series]," he said. "I read some [Poirot] stories and started working on it. Once I started working on it, it sort of came back."

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of Christie's best-known mysteries. The thriller finds Poirot retired and living in a beautiful little country village. But when his friend and neighbor, the wealthy industrialist Roger Ackroyd, is murdered, Poirot revs up his "little gray cells" and is hot on the case. Poirot also is reunited with his old counterpart, Chief Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson).

A key role in the novel is that of the narrator, making for a difficult adaptation to TV. Producer Brian Eastman came up with the idea of having Poirot find the narrator's journal and read it as a voice-over.

Eastman, who has produced all the Poirot mysteries, said the series never really ended; "the gap between those last ones and this just got a bit extended" because both he and Suchet were involved in other projects.

"What did take place is that the British broadcaster and the American broadcaster came and said, 'We have had enough of reruns. Can we have some new ones?' Everything was right. David had finished what he was doing and was ready to do some more."

Eastman chose Ackroyd because he wanted the series to return with a famous title to make sure fans knew it was an original. (This summer, A&E is scheduled to air another Poirot mystery, Lord Edgeware Dies. If both films do well, A&E plans to produce more.)

Though the Poirot series originally aired on PBS's Mystery!, A&E has been airing repeats since 1993. The series has proven a good fit for the cable network. "There are a very small handful of [British] mysteries which I consider the blue-chip stock of the mystery world because they have stood the test of time because the actors who played the lead roles have become identified with those characters," said Delia Fine, executive producer for A&E.

In fact, A&E approached the British producer, ITV, about doing more Poirots. "We think they are timeless and classic," Fine said. "Fans have written to us when it became clear there were no new ones coming through the pipeline, and we had a huge reaction in terms of support" for the new ones.

Suchet slicks back his hair, sports a curly mustache and wears padding for his role as Poirot. He is always amazed when he is recognized in public. "We were in Oslo and it was a very hot day, so I was wearing a hat, dark glasses, and my children were side-by-side of me, and my wife was on the other side of them," Suchet said. "All of a sudden, a young girl of about 20 comes up to me and says, 'You are David Suchet, aren't you?' She said, 'I have every single episode you have ever made of Poirot.' My children's jaws just dropped, and so did mine."

The actor, who says he receives letters from fans ages 7 to 90, believes Poirot has crossed international boundaries because people love the eccentric character. "If you went to a book shop, you wouldn't say, 'Do you have Murder on the Orient Express?' You would say, 'What Poirot books do you have?' If you say there is a new Poirot on TV, they'll watch."

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