Chris Barrie thought a ‘Red Dwarf’ revival might never happen.
The 60-year-old actor – who reprised his role as Rimmer in the recent feature length film ‘The Promised Land’ – admitted while there were always talks of more episodes after the eighth series in 1999, it wasn’t until an initial return in 2009 that he really believe the project would come to light.
He told RadioTimes.com: "Well, I always knew after series eight, which I think transmitted in about 1999, I always knew that Doug was keen to get it back on, whether as a feature film – I mean, that was the big idea in the early part of this century, to have a feature film.
"But every time… you were never far away from some form of communication with the Red Dwarf office to say, ‘Guys, we’re nearly there on this, we’re nearly there on that’.
"Mind you, I suppose when we got to about 2007 or somewhere around there, 2006 or 2007, I thought to myself, ‘We haven’t done the show for so long now, for eight years or whatever, it’s not going to happen again.’ "
However, the three-part ‘Back To Earth’ series has led to further returns – including three six episode series in 2012, 2016 and 2017 – before this year’s ‘Promised Land’ project.
Barrie – who stars alongside Dave Lister (Craig Charles), the Cat (Danny John-Jules) and Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) – suggested the continued success and enduring popularity means there could be more plans in the pipeline.
He added: "Then lo and behold in 2009 it kicked off again! And now I think we’re at the stage where I think there’s the possibility that they want to do more and more… so we’ll see!"