Line Of Duty might have thrilled viewers with its lake crash scene in the most recent episode, but it sounds like it was a lot less fun to film. 

Gregory Piper, who plays corrupt police officer Ryan Pilkington on the BBC cop drama, has revealed he had to come up with an ingenious way of preparing to film in the freezing waters last November. 

The scene saw Gregory’s character attack the driver of a police escort carrying murder suspect Terry Boyle, causing the vehicle to plunge into a nearby lake. 

Appearing on Friday’s Good Morning Britain, Gregory opened up about filming the stunt, saying: “It was very exciting, when I got to read it, the images going through your head of what this could be. We filmed it in the middle of November so the water was really, really cold.

“My kind of preparation for that was to try and turn the heat down in the shower.”

He continued: “So much fun, everyone really, really looked after me, it was such an amazing experience. I did have a stunt double as well and sometimes we swapped. It wasn’t just one person in the water so much. There were three stunt doubles actually as well for all the characters.

“There was three night shoots and then we did a shoot in a studio as well, that was a bit warmer, so that was cool.”

The show’s writer and creator, Jed Mercurio, previously revealed that the stunt was filmed in “bitterly cold” conditions, and Gregory was “in and out of a freezing reservoir dozens of times”. 

Viewers of Sunday night’s episode also thought they spotted a clever nod to one of Kelly Macdonald’s previous roles hidden in the stunt scenes. 

A number of eagle-eyed fans on Twitter believed that the vehicle’s number plate was an Easter egg for fans of the iconic film Trainspotting, which Kelly appeared in as Diane Coulston in 1996. 

The car’s registration was BE66 BAI, which they believed was a reference to the character of Begbie, who was played by Robert Carlyle in the film. 

Of course, this was not the only thing that fans spotted during Sunday’s episode – some believed it featured a major clue about the elusive “H” in the unlikeliest of places. 

Line Of Duty continues on Sunday at 9pm on BBC One. Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.