Endeavour star Shaun Evans ‘struggles’ why women are attracted to his detective character

Endeavour star Shaun Evans can’t out why his character is so popular with women.

Across the seven series of the drama, which tells the story of Inspector Morse before he became Inspector, Endeavour (Evans) hasn’t done too badly with the ladies – although all his romances so far have either been short lived or ended in disaster.

He previously tried, and failed, to keep things going with Joan Thursday (Sara Vickers), and that was after he brutally ditched nurse Monica Hicks (Shvorne Marks).

But despite all these love interests, Shaun doesn’t get why he’s catnip to the opposite sex.

‘It’s hard to answer that,’ he said.

Laughing he added: ‘I’m trying to give a good answer but…struggling.’

In the new episodes he might have found romance with the mysterious Violetta (Stephanie Leonidas), who he meets in Venice – but there’s a twist in their relationship which suggests this can only end in tears.

Shaun explained: ‘It’s the unattainable. There’s an operatic quality to her. There’s something slightly unreal. You could never have a proper relationship with her. It’s never gonna end happily because she’s so not of his world.’

Having played the character for seven series now, Shaun has got pretty good at playing detective and spotting the culprit in a murder mystery.

But he would never take on the role himself for real as police work can get ‘pretty gruesome’.

‘I don’t think I would [be a good detective],’ he confessed.

‘It can be pretty gruesome can’t it? It takes a very specific, amazing kind of person to want to visit that every day. Watching this show is like fucking hell, the things the police force go through is properly extraordinary.

Endeavour returns 9 February at 8pm on ITV.