The new series of Unforgotten has made a return to our TV screens and viewers have so far seen DCI Jessica James (Sinéad Keenan) and DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) take on a brand new grisly case. As well as the ongoing drama, fans of the ITV hit drama were also introduced to a number of new faces. One of the new cast members who has joined Unforgotten for season 6 is Maximilian Fairley, who stars as Marty Bains.
Described as an autistic man who lives with his mother in Kent and is a little lost, Max has opened up about his new character as he revealed that he thinks autism representation has "come a long way". The actor has also praised the "refreshing" nature of Marty's story. Ahead of the series returning, Max told Radio Times: "I always felt for a long time that autistic characters were often consigned to background roles or 'the victim' and seeing (writer) Chris (Lang) challenge that with Marty’s story is really refreshing.".
Being autistic himself, Max said that playing Marty comes with a "shared understanding" about "what it feels like to be lonely, to be misunderstood what it feels like to be craving that sense of finding your people and the place where you belong". He said: "Chris has written Marty in a way that almost subverts the norm in that this definitely comes through in the scripts, but without knocking you on the head with it or being overly on the nose. I am in love with this character.
"There is a real purity and innocence to Marty and what is particularly interesting is even though that’s true, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t also make terrible mistakes.”. Away from the ITV hit drama, Max graduated from the Royal Centre School of Speech and Drama. The star is hard of hearing and neurodiverse, with high-functioning autism. For his performance as Harry Honeybone in Village Idiot, Max was nominated for "Best Newcomer" in the 2023 Office Awards.
