'Shameless' turned down Nighy, Lucas

Shameless creator Paul Abbott has revealed that Bill Nighy, Matt Lucas and John Simm contacted him to ask for parts in the popular Channel 4 series.

However, he resisted their advances because he felt that guest appearances from well-known actors would harm the series' sense of realism.

He said: "I get messages from John Simm, from Matt Lucas, from Bill Nighy - people who just want to make a guest appearance, you know, for a laugh. That makes it look like we need them, but we don't need them.

"The best aspect of the show is that we started in episode one with no recognisable people... We don't need faces to sell it."