GRAY O'Brien has been watching the detectives.

Spending time in a police station, the former Coronation Street star has been watching how they bark out orders, review cases, how many sugars they take in their tea. . .

"What I found out was their working lives are really quite dull," he says, smiling of his stint in Brighton and Hove.

"I thought they'd be much more expressive, given the job they do but the reality is they speak in this deadpan delivery."

The Stewarton-born actor realised real cops are not at all like DCI Burke in Taggart or DI Viv Deering in No Offence.

But where to find inspiration for Gray's latest stage role as top cop Roy Grace in Dead Simple?

The play, based on the book by Peter James (who has created 11 best-selling Grace adventures) revolves around Michael Harrison, a man who has it all - great career, good friends and a beautiful fiancée.

But he disappears three days before his wedding. And his distraught fiancée, Ashley seems to know more than she's revealing.

Meantime, Grace has his own demons to deal with, haunted by the shadow of his missing wife.

Gray hoped he'd adopt some cop characteristics by osmosis, but the working life of a superintendent isn't that arresting.

So how to create a novel character such as Grace on stage, given the main attraction in such thrillers is the plot.

"Yes, a great deal is exposition," says Gray. "The challenge for me was not to make him a caricature. The challenge was to keep the plot going, but at the same time I wanted to get inside his head a bit and show something of his personality to an audience.

"I wanted to explore what he's been thinking since Sandy left him. We get to touch on it in the play but not to any substantial amount."

So how does he give a hint of this rather career-obsessed, slightly disturbed creature?

"Well, as you know, that's me," he declares, grinning.

"No, I think the thing to do is play him as unsettled. He's a man who can't really get on with his life because of what's gone on.

"And so you think 'How do you write someone out of your life when there's always hope that the door's going to open at some point?'"

Gray O'Brien clearly invests great deal to the roles he takes on.

His dedication to the cause, the research he'll undertake, is one of the reasons (plus natural talent of course) why the actor has worked solidly for the past twenty five years in the likes of Casualty, River City and of course as knicker factory nutter Tony Gordon, in Corrie.

However, he smiles as he admits he's been fortunate in his career in that he always knew he wanted to act.

"I played the Tin Man when I was aged five or six in a school production and the idea stayed with me," he recalls, grinning.

"However, when I later declared this intent to my career's teacher, he said; 'Acting? No, no! That's for the toffs, son. You'd be better with a job at the carpet factory."

Gray, one of seven kids, resisted the allure of the axminster, the pull of the plush Paisley pattern and determined to make the acting dream a reality.

But he still had to gain acceptance to drama college.

"Aged seventeen I applied to Glasgow's RSAMD and was told I was too young," he says.

"So I took a year out and went to work for a knitwear company because the boss had already sponsored me to go to the National Youth Theatre.

"This was a sort of pay back, where I would go and work for him for a couple of months. "

Gray proved he could cut it. And during his successful stint he put together a design portfolio which saw him accepted to study Design at Trent Poly.

"It was nice to get the offer," he recalls. "But meantime, I was accepted by drama college and knew that's where the dream lay."

Gray made his stage debut in Treasure Island in 1990, having landed the role on the day he left college. And gained his Equity Card.

He adds, in soft voice; "There are only two or three from my class of 1990 when I graduated still working."

Gray has defied the odds, landing lots of 'nicey-nice characters, doctors, and dads.'

"Then I landed Coronation Street and everything changed," he says, with a tight smile."

For better and worse. He had work for four years and a national profile, but afterwards directors didn't know how to cast him.

But then theatre came along and he's proved he can more than hold his own in the likes of west end runs of Sleuth with Peter Bowles.

However, Gray, reveals he had one about playing Roy Grace.

In his mid-forties, he reckoned he was too young to play a Superintendent.

"Then I realised that cops at fifty have most likely retired," he says grinning.

"I'm in my mid-forties so at least that's about right."

€¢ Dead Simple also stars, Jamie Lomas, Rik Makarem, Gemma Stroyen, May 18-23, The Theatre Royal.