BBC's new Liverpool-based drama The Responder is set to start tonight.
Martin Freeman stars in the six part series, written by ex-Merseyside police officer Tony Schumacher.
The Office and Hobbit actor plays Chris in the show, who is a crisis-stricken, morally compromised, unconventional urgent response officer tackling a series of night shifts on the beat in Liverpool.
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Whilst trying to keep his head above water both personally and professionally, Chris is forced to take on a new rookie partner Rachel (Adelayo Adedayo).
Both soon discover that survival in this high pressure, relentless, night-time world will depend on them either helping or destroying each other.
Martin went to great lengths to prepare for the role as a Liverpool police officer and spoke to himself in Scouse for a year and a half to perfect the accent.
He told the Metro : "I didn’t watch anything [to take inspiration].
"I have spent a lot of time in Liverpool in my life.
"Talking to people in the city and talking to people and to Tony was part of it."
He added: "I walked around for a year and a half, occasionally just talking to myself in Scouse. Even though you’re not always the best judge of your own thing, I do trust my ear.
"If I say something, I know when it sounds off. I got very, very exact about that stuff. You have to be because if I don’t do it well, it’s a terrible accent to get wrong.
"There are some accents where you don’t want to be in that city among the inhabitants of that city making a balls-up of it."
Away from the screen, Martin was in a relationship with actress Amanda Abbington for 16 years from 2000 to 2016.
The former partners met on the set of the TV movie Men Only and share two children named Joe and Grace.
Amanda and Martin worked together in BBC's hit adaptation of Sherlock as John and Mary Watson.
Martin announced the split in 2016 and admitted on Desert Island Discs that it "wasn't that much fun" filming the last season of Sherlock when their marriage was coming to an end.
Martin is now dating 29-year-old French actress Rachel Mariam, but the former married couple have both publicly spoken about how they still love one another and have stayed friends to co-parent their children.
Amanda told Red Magazine : "We still love each other - even if we're not in love with each other - and neither of us sees our relationship as a failure. We had 16 great years together and have two fantastic kids. We still talk and we still give each other advice."
Martin's chemistry on Sherlock with co-star Benedict Cumberbatch won acclaim from critics and led to the show becoming a global smash hit.
However, there was speculation of a rift after Martin said the pressures of filming the show cast doubt on whether he would want to return for another series.
He told The Telegraph in 2018: "I think after series four [it] felt like a pause. I think we felt we’d done it for a bit now. And part of it, speaking for myself is [due to] the reception of it.
"Being in that show, it is a mini- Beatles thing. People’s expectations, some of it’s not fun anymore. It’s not a thing to be enjoyed."
Benedict hit back at the comments and blasted them as "pathetic".
He also told The Telegraph : "It’s pretty pathetic if that’s all it takes to let you not want to take a grip of your reality.
"What, because of expectations? I don’t know. I don’t necessarily agree with that.”
Martin later clarified his remarks and insisted he is fan of Sherlock and is well aware of the show's "importance in [his] life".
He told the Daily Beast : "My point with Sherlock was that those expectations can be heavy.
"There’s a certain aspect that some fans are going to run with the ball and make their own thing out of your show - which is completely fair enough, as long as we all acknowledge that that is what is happening.
"I think when you get into a slightly tail-wagging-the-dog scenario, that gets boring, for me. So when people insist that Sherlock is supposed to be this show, when we decide what show it is, it’s like, 'No, this is actually the show we’re making, and that we’ve always made. I know you want to see this happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to have to happen.' So that’s what gets, frankly, wearing."
The Responder starts tonight at 9pm on BBC One
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