'Downton Abbey' Star Brendan Coyle, Mr Bates, Fed Up With Fans Secretly Filming Him

'Downton Abbey' star Brendan Coyle has hit out at fans who film him surreptitiously on camera phones.

The actor, 49, has become a household name thanks to his role as valet John Bates in Julian Fellowes' hit ITV1 period drama.

He told the Radio Times: "One thing I'm really keen not to do is complain about the fact that I got a job that's made me very successful.

Brendan Coyle as Mr Bates

"But what I will say is that every single f****r on the planet has a camera. I posed for about 40 photographs yesterday.

"I don't mind stopping for a photograph, yes, sure, what I really mind is..." Coyle then did an impression of someone trying to secretly film him.

Brendan said that becoming a heartthrob later in life had not affected his love life.

He added: "I'm going to be 50 soon. It just doesn't seem to be that important any more. I'm single, I'm looking for something meaningful.... By the time you've been single for quite a long time, you can get quite specific about what you can and can't put up with.

"If this TV success had come in my 20s, if I was young and I'd become a heartthrob, I would have been very stupid.

"I would have got into a lot of situations that I really wished I hadn't. But in my 40s, that's not going to happen."

To the disappointment of the show's fans, he hinted that the Bafta and Emmy-winning drama did have a shelf-life, telling the magazine: "I can pretty much say all of us know when 'Downton' is going to end. This is a show with a finite life."