Richard Dormer, who stars as Beric Dondarrion in Game of Thrones, plays DCI Gabriel Markham in new six-part BBC series Rellik, alongside Jodi Balfour playing his partner DI Elaine Mills, which aired its first episode tonight.
The drama – written by The Missing writers Jack and Harry Williams – follows a gruesome murder case from back to front, starting with the moment a deeply scarred Gabriel arrests suspected serial killer Steven Mills (Michael Shaeffer) for killing six people and attacking two (including himself) with acid.
But before the detective could hear the father-of-one’s side of the story, Steven was suddenly shot dead by surrounding officers when he attempted to reach for his mobile phone.
As the episode progressed, regularly rewinding hours back in time with the story amid a pumping soundtrack, viewers became gripped by Dormer’s terrorising portrayal of a hardened detective determined to get to the truth as well as his almost unrecognisable appearance.
Following Dormer’s transformation, fans of the star took to Twitter to express their shock.
One person said: “Holy moly! Richard Dormer is looking like The Hound in this! #Rellik #LiveTweet”
“That’s one heck of a make-up job. Richard Dormer never does anything that’s light. #Rellik,” another viewer commented.
After agreeing to take on the role, the Irish actor was forced to spend two hours in the makeup trailer on set every day while having the sinister “Freddy Krueger-esque” rubber mask applied, which was designed to make him look like the victim of an acid attack, and involved some gruelling techniques to keep the injury realistic.
Speaking to The Sun about the impressive process, the Beric Dondarrion star revealed: “I had to get it done every single day of filming; it was horrendous. Whenever we were doing action sequences, the prosthetics would fill up with sweat – it was just grotesque!”
He went on to explain how he dealt with playing the character, saying: “They told me this guy would be in a huge amount of constant pain. I couldn’t turn my head to look over my shoulder as the scarring would stretch and that would be agony. And when I smiled, it was lopsided as the nerve endings wouldn’t work on the left side of the face.”
Rellik continues Monday at 9pm on BBC One.
