(Photo: Getty Images)
Endeavour returns to PBS Sunday for its penultimate season. To whet your appetite, we're getting better acquainted with Shaun Evans, the actor who stars as Oxford police officer Endeavour Morse (a role originated by John Thaw in the popular '80s and '90s series Morse). Evans definitely plays his cards close to his chest, but here are 10 things you may not know about this talented actor.
1. As a child, he suffered from "terrible, terrible asthma."
Thankfully, Evans has since managed to overcome it to a pretty inspiring extent. "I was in hospital all the time on drips. I actually don't remember mostly until I was about 11 or 12, so it was more trying for my family," he told Square Mile. "When I was 20 I was just splitting up with a girl and I decided to run a f**king marathon, man. It was really brutal, but I remember thinking, ‘That was good. I never thought I'd be able to do that, and I just did.'"
2. He grew up in Liverpool to a family with Irish roots.
Evans told the Radio Times that their Irish background "was a massive part of my culture growing up," adding: "I feel as close an affinity with that as I do with being from Up North [in England]."
3. He's a director as well as an actor.
In addition to directing three episodes of Endeavour, Evans has helmed three episodes of the BBC's long-running medical drama series Casualty.
4. He's also a keen photographer.
A photograph Evans took of Liverpool's River Mersey appeared in The Liverpool Art Book in 2019. You can check out his handiwork here. He told PopMatters in 2019 that though he has previously been quite private about his photograph, in the future he "would like to make exhibitions and perhaps make a book."
5. He has never watched the original Morse TV series starring the late, great John Thaw.
And this was very much a conscious decision on his part. "I knew this Morse had to come out of my imagination. So I told them from the start that, if they wanted an imitation of someone else, I was the wrong guy," he told The Guardian. "I did buy all the DVDs later, but never watched them. Maybe I will when we're done."
6. He had never really questioned where his desire to act came from.
Evans acted in school plays as a teenager, then applied for drama school after he completed his regular education. He went on to study at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama. "I was 18 and I fancied it to be honest. It may sound flippant, but it was what I wanted to do," he told The Irish Post. "I can’t really explain it. I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to go to drama school and I went. I dunno, I don’t really think about it, to be honest."
7. He has lived in London ever since.
And he's clearly still enthralled by the U.K.'s bustling capital city. "I love London because it has so much going for it," he told 1883 Magazine. "There’s always so much going on. Sometimes I think, God, I feel exhausted by this place but then I’m like…you can go and do anything. There’s so many amazing, interesting things you can do. And even little adventures as you walk down the street. I feel like London is such an awesome, alive place in many ways."
8. He doesn't like to give too much away in interviews.
And it's fair to say that so far, Evans has managed to keep his private life just that: private. "The more people know about you, the less willing they are to align with you as an actor when you play a part," he told The Times of London. "And the work is enough for me; it’s its own reward. I don’t need... the b***ocks that comes along with it can be distracting to your work and it’s that that I am quite guarded against."
9. One of his acting heroes is Annette Bening.
They worked together on the 2004 movie Being Julia, which was only Evans' third big-screen appearance. "She's different in everything that she does and so I always believe she is that person having that experience, you know?" he told 1883 Magazine. "I think her work is extraordinary and I worked with her when I was in one of my first jobs actually, and that’s something to aspire to. That is what it means to be an actor."
10. He avoids reading his interviews or reviews of his work. 
And in fairness, there's a logical reason for this policy. "I don't want to be made self-conscious," he told the FT. "I want to be free, and not feel weighed down."
Are you excited to see Shaun Evans as Endeavour Morse again?