He's the posh policeman on TV, but actor Nathaniel Parker is far happier on the set of a Hollywood movie.

Steve Pratt talks to him about whodunits, starring opposite Eddie Murphy in a Disney film and why he's vowed to reduce his stage roles in future.

NATHANIEL Parker is back in action as posh cop Inspector Lynley on BBC1 tonight - all very different to the ghostbusting antics of his latest Disney picture.

The British actor moves easily between Hollywood and England, although reveals that he actually gets paid more on the Inspector Lynley Mysteries than he does on US movies.

"They tax you big-time unless you're the star. The big guys get the money. It's still lovely though," he says, although Disney provided him with a bigger trailer on location than he gets on Lynley.

The BBC series reunites him with Sharon Small, as his sidekick Detective Sergeant Havers, in new stories based on the detective novels by Californian author Elizabeth George.

The ending of the previous series found Havers back in uniform as a detective constable after firing a flare gun at a colleague. She blames Lynley for not taking her side, so there's an antagonistic atmosphere between them. Lynley has problems at home because his wife complains they never see each other.

London-born Parker loves working in Hollywood, where work has included roles in Kevin Costner's The Bodyguard, Beverly Hills Ninja and Squanto: A Warrior's Tale.

"I absolutely adore it out there," he admits. "I would work 13 months of the year in Hollywood, given half the chance. I love the way they treat you as an actor. It's great fun. You sit on one of those high chairs with your name on it, a cappuccino in one hand, phone in the other, getting made up on Rodeo Drive.

"You know, sometimes life's a gas. And you get paid too. I'm quite happy when I'm out there. The first time I was there I kept car park tickets for every single studio I went to. This is what you grow up with and, for me, it really was exciting."

HE found himself acting opposite Eddie Murphy in The Haunted Mansion, which is based on the Disneyland theme park ride. It proved an unnerving experience. "The first scene I did with him was the first time I'd actually met him. I turned round and looked at him, and he started doing his bit, and I suddenly burst into hysterics," he recalls.

"We had to cut and I felt like a right idiot. You could see his face going, 'What's the problem?'. But it was just, 'You're funny Eddie, terribly funny'."

In the film, Parker plays a ghostly mansion owner convinced that Murphy's wife (played by another Brit, Mancunian Marsha Thomason) is the reincarnation of his dead lover.

Film has offered him the chance to meet some of his idols. He worked with Laurence Olivier - "my absolute hero" - on War Requiem. "I was there for one day but can say I worked with him," he says. On The Bodyguard, he appeared with Kevin Costney and Whitney Huston, and with Mel Gibson and Glenn Close in Hamlet.

As much as Parker loves Hollywood, he's always glad to return home to actress wife Anna Patrick and their two children, and to resume his role as TV's Inspector Lynley.

"Working on the Lynley sets are always great fun," he says. "People always want to come back and do another part, but I have to say, 'You can't, you're dead'."

He spent two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared opposite Dustin Hoffman in a production of The Merchant Of Venice in London and on Broadway. Now stage work doesn't figure in his future plans.

"I really do get paid peanuts for that," he says. "The only plan I have got is to do less theatre. It's exhausting in a way I can't do any more. Night after night not seeing my family, and when I wake up in the morning the first thing I think about is how I pace my day, so that I've got enough energy in the evenings. So the rest of my day is really low key. I don't want that, it's a nightmare for my family."

He'd much rather do film. The first time he sat in front of a camera, he fell in love with it. It's a bit self-indulgent, he admits, but it's true.

Parker knows that planning an acting career is impossible. "I laugh at the idea of a plan," he says. "If you're offered a job, you take it. My only plan is to do less theatre."

* Inspector Lynley Mysteries return to BBC1 at 8pm tonight.

* The Haunted Mansion (PG) is showing in cinemas.

Published: 04/03/2004