Stephen Graham set up Daniel Mays with his now-wife.
The ‘Code 404’ actors previously appeared together in sitcom ‘Top Buzzer’, and Stephen revealed how his co-star had developed a bit of a crush on makeup artist Louise Burton, but she wasn’t immediately keen on the idea of hooking up.
Speaking in a joint interview with Danny on ITV’s ‘This Morning’ via a video link, Stephen said: "We worked together on a show about 15 years ago called ‘Top Buzzer’, and Danny really had the hots for Lou, who was our head of makeup.
"She’s a little bit older than Danny … so I went, ‘Go ahead, you’ll be aright.’
"Anyway, so he asked her out after I’d sweetened her up, and she said no."
Thankfully it all worked out in the end, and Daniel’s wife was asked to explain herself live on air.
She laughed: "He was a little bit too young … how did he win me round? His persuasiveness!"
Daniel has since repaid the favour as he suggested Stephen for their new Sky One police comedy drama ‘Code 404’, in which they play a top crime-fighting duo.
When DI John Major (Daniel) is suddenly gunned down and killed, his body is sent to an experimental Artificial Intelligence project to bring him back from the dead.
John 2.0 looks and sounds like the original but his deteriorating crime-fighting skills leave DI Roy Carver (Stephen) grappling on the frontline.
Stephen added: "Danny very kindly threw my name in the hat. Me and Danny worked together years ago, and we’ve been looking for something to do since then, for a while.
"This came up … I think I was actually making [wife] Hannah a cup of tea, and she was in here reading it laughing her head off.
"She shouted, ‘Right, this is what you’re doing next.’ "
The duo were delighted to be working together again, even if it meant longer days on set because they couldn’t stop laughing.
Daniel explained: "It was an absolutely joyous time, because we just literally didn’t stop laughing. We were corpsing all the time …
"We would add 20 minutes onto each filming day, so the producers were tearing their hair out."
Stephen Graham turned matchmaker for Daniel Mays and his wife
