Alexander Litvinenko’s wife Marina has admitted she was in disbelief when she discovered David Tennant was to play her late husband in a new ITVX drama.

Litvinenko was killed by poison and took 23 days to die in 2006, accusing Vladimir Putin of being behind his death.

On December 15, ITVX released the first drama following the detective’s side of the story with Tennant in the titular role and Margarita Levieva as his wife.

Appearing on Thursday’s Lorraine, Marina revealed her initial reaction to the Doctor Who star portraying her husband.

‘Everytime when I’ve been involved it’s been for a documentary and I loved it to be very precise and detailed and I knew how it was important,’ she said.

‘First I heard from a producer of the documentary about this drama and David Tennant to play Sasha I thought, “I couldn’t believe it.”

Marina Litvinenko was in disbelief over David Tennant casting (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)

David Tennant stars as Alexander Litvinenko in the chilling ITVX drama (Picture: ITVX)

Margarita Levieva stars as Marina (Picture: ITVX)

‘David is a star. What does it mean? He might attract more people to watch.’

Litvinenko writer George Kay previously explained to Metro.co.uk that Marina’s verdict on his drama was the only opinion he really cared about.

‘It isn’t just his story, but the story of so many other things that are going on in the world today, but the only person we are worried about watching this is Marina, because if she’s not happy we’ve really let ourselves and herself and everyone involved down,’ Kay told us.

Thankfully, she was fully on board and, according to Kay, has ‘been happy’ with everything she’s seen so far.

Litvinenko is available to stream on ITVX.

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David Tennant stars in the ITVX drama Litvinenko.