Stephen Graham has insisted that Boiling Point is "extremely different" from Disney+'s The Bear.
A continuation of the acclaimed 2021 film of the same name - all shot in one take - the four-part show is set in the high-pressured environment of a restaurant kitchen and begins around six weeks after the events of the movie, which ended with Graham's head chef character suffering an overdose during a busy service.
The programme has drawn comparisons with the similarly-acclaimed show The Bear, which stars Jeremy Allen White as a chef managing a chaotic kitchen in his family's Chicago sandwich shop.
"We're extremely different from The Bear," Graham told The Times.
"Our film was made before their series. You can look and see, that's a fact. How many keys are there on a piano? How many tunes?"
Graham, who also serves as executive producer, will have less of an on-screen presence in the series compared to the film as he instead looks to champion new on-screen talent.
"I feel we have an opportunity first, and I'm not being disrespectful to dramas that I'm watching at the moment," he added. "But I want to make something that would have inspired me as a young actor - and would have made me think as a young man growing up. And it has to be entertaining."
Boiling Point begins tonight at 9pm on BBC One.
Neil Wilkes
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