Martin Clunes reveals the harsh ‘advice’ he received after his dad’s death
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To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. Martin Clunes is playing a widow in new ITV drama Out There, and has spoken about how men can be expected to grieve.
![[Martin Clunes as Doc Martin. He is wearing a suit and sat behind a desk.]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_122164928-8c2d.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
He candidly shared how there can be pressure to ‘carry on’, and recalls experiencing this himself after losing his dad Alec Clunes. His actor father died from lung cancer aged 57 in 1970. ‘I remember when my dad died, I was eight and the advice was “You’re the man of the house now and you’ve got to be grown up”. I was still wetting the bed, but never mind,’ he told Metro and other press during the launch event for Out There, held at London’s Soho Hotel.
![[Editorial use only. No book cover usage. Mandatory Credit: Photo by Red House/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock (5885169al) Ben Stiller The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty - 2013 Director: Ben Stiller Red House Entertainment USA Scene Still La Vie r?v?e de Walter Mitty]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_232072023-7b59.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
The 63-year-old actor stated: ‘Men can feel like they have to just carry on, and my character does plough on.’. Grief is a major theme throughout the six-part series after the central characters lose the matriarch of their family. They took extra care to ensure that the scenes resembled the reality of how people may deal with a loss.
![[Mandatory Credit: Photo by David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock (14229152t) Philippa Braithwaite (L) and Martin Clunes Tusk Conservation Awards, London, UK - 27 Nov 2023]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_232072035-4eb3-e1733418118664.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Martin, who played farmer Nathan Williams, said: ‘It’s not that they just sit down and grieve all the time, there are moments of light because that’s how it is in real life.’. In the series Nathan is pulled into a dark world of county lines drug dealing after his teenage son Johnny, played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis, becomes involved.
