All Creatures Great and Small (TV series) that be wanted to cast the role. Sellars, instead, asked Timothy if he would accept the role of Tristan Farnon. "I had a wife, I had children, I had a mortgage to pay, and I wasn't working. So I said, 'No. It's Herriot or nothing.'" Timothy put everything on the line. "I got home one night, at about 9 o'clock. My wife was washing up in the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and she said, without turning round, 'You've got the Herriot part.'" Timothy also stated that, after all of the roles had been cast except that of Herriot,
Robert Hardy Robert Hardy Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy (29 October 1925 – 3 August 2017) was an English actor who had a long career in the theatre, film and television. He began his career as a classical actor and later earned widespread recognition for roles such as Siegfried Farnon in the BBC television series "All Creatures Great and Small", Cornelius Fudge in the "Harry Potter" film series and Winston Churchill in several productions, beginning with the Southern Television series "". He was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Actor for "All Creatures Great and Small" in 1980 and "Winston Churchill: The Wilderness