Director Morgan Matthews and star John Bradley explained during exclusive interviews with RadioTimes.com<\/a> that Bernard Cribbins was at one point set to reprise his iconic role as station master Albert Perks, before those plans sadly had to be shelved.<\/p>\n \u201cThere certainly were conversations about Bernard coming back to play the station master,\u201d said Matthews. \u201cNot necessarily a working station master, but he would still have a role at the station and be connected to it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we would have loved to have had Bernard back. But at the time \u2013 I mean he\u2019s in his 90s \u2013 sadly his wife was unwell and he wasn\u2019t able to join us.\u201d<\/p> \u201cI mean, it was a bit of a saga really,\u201d added Bradley. \u201cBecause there was talk of Bernard reprising the role for a while and for various reasons that didn\u2019t work out, sadly.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it was just a case of\u2026 for a while it was Bernard could do three days and then you\u2019ll do a couple of days, but slowly but surely it became clear that Bernard wasn\u2019t going to do it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n But even if Cribbins was sadly unable to play his part, the spirit of his character very much lives on in the new film through Bradley\u2019s character Richard \u2013 who is the grandson of Albert Perks.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when I realised that the character I\u2019m going to play, Richard, has functionally sort of the same practical function as the part would have been if it was Bernard playing it,\u201d Bradley said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it was about looking at Bernard\u2019s performance and trying to work out what traits of that character can be passed on down the generations really.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd for me, it was all about, you know, the conscientious attitude to work, discipline, and diligence, but not wanting to be made a fool of and quite a soft, spiky defensiveness.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think that it\u2019s perfectly legitimate, that those traits can be passed on from father to son, and then to grandson. So it was a glorious mix of being inspired by Bernard and having such a blueprint to draw from but getting to create my own little character as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Matthews added that Bradley was \u201cvery much evoking the spirit of Perks in that role\u201d \u2013 even if his relationship with his grandfather is never mentioned in the film itself.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though that connection and that family relationship isn\u2019t made explicit in the film \u2013 because if children are watching they wouldn\u2019t necessarily know who Perks was \u2013 just having a bit of his essence was really important and I think good for John to have that kind of grounding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Railway Children Return is released in UK cinemas on Friday 15th July 2022. Visit our\u00a0Movies<\/a>\u00a0hub for the latest news and features, or find something to watch tonight with our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0and get the next 12 issues for only \u00a31. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the\u00a0Radio Times podcast<\/a>\u00a0with Jane Garvey.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Patrick Cremona Published: Tuesday, 12 July 2022 at 12:00 am Fans of Lionel Jeffries\u2019s classic 1970 film The Railway Children will be delighted to see Jenny Agutter reprise her role as Bobbie Waterbury in the upcoming sequel The Railway Children Return \u2013 and it turns out another star of the original was also almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":18361,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/bernard-cribbins-originally-set-to-be-in-the-railway-children-return.jpg",1920,1269,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/bernard-cribbins-originally-set-to-be-in-the-railway-children-return-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/bernard-cribbins-originally-set-to-be-in-the-railway-children-return-300x198.jpg",300,198,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/bernard-cribbins-originally-set-to-be-in-the-railway-children-return-768x508.jpg",768,508,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/bernard-cribbins-originally-set-to-be-in-the-railway-children-return-1024x677.jpg",800,529,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/bernard-cribbins-originally-set-to-be-in-the-railway-children-return-1536x1015.jpg",1536,1015,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/bernard-cribbins-originally-set-to-be-in-the-railway-children-return.jpg",1920,1269,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Patrick Cremona Published: Tuesday, 12 July 2022 at 12:00 am Fans of Lionel Jeffries\u2019s classic 1970 film The Railway Children will be delighted to see Jenny Agutter reprise her role as Bobbie Waterbury in the upcoming sequel The Railway Children Return \u2013 and it turns out another star of the original was also almost…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/18360"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/07\/TRWCR-D27-00127HR-39a092e.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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