Aidan Turner is about to take to our TV screens on a Sunday night as the lead in the new BBC period drama Poldark. I was recently invited, on behalf of Middle-earth News, to a screening of the first episode and Q&A with Aidan and I was really impressed with the show. It has romance, action, some laugh-out-loud moments, and plenty of shots of the beautiful Cornish countryside.
Aidan is in the press a lot this week, promoting Poldark but, in this extract from an interview with The Telegraph, he talks a little about filming The Hobbit:
The Hobbit was his Hollywood big break, and working in New Zealand with Jackson’s epic-scale CGI was a culture shock after years of TV. “At first, you’re aware that you’re standing in front of a green screen talking to a tennis ball, but then you relax and it becomes very easy to act as if everything is really there. The problem then comes [in other, more conventional scenes] when the tennis ball is replaced with Sir Ian McKellen and you have to look into his eyes, and you’re like, f—! It’s Sir Ian McKellen!
“But I drank all this amazing New Zealand wine, and I didn’t have to worry about getting fat. I’d just be at the back of the shot in my muscle suit, so it didn’t matter if I put on a few pounds. It was brilliant.”
He had 12 weeks of training before donning his dwarf costume, which means he’s “alright riding a horse now, and I’m pretty decent with a sword. All actors put those things on their CV, but now I can actually do them.”
Turner is charming, self-deprecating and gossipy. Mid-interview, he leaps into an affectionate impression of Peter Jackson directing hordes of on-location actors from inside a tent, before jumping across the room to tell the story of an embarrassing incident from the filming of Poldark, which involved him pretending to ride a fake horse in front of a green screen, watched by his swish American agent.
“I was just humping this box in front of a load of people” – he demonstrates an inelegant horse-riding pose – “with this serious, romantic look on my face.” He puts his face in his hands. “And I had to be all professional about it.”
After spending years playing a dwarf and a vampire, was it tricky to adjust to playing the owner of a tin mine? “Do you mean was it a challenge playing a normal human being?” He laughs. “Yeah I suppose so, but it was exactly what I was looking for.”
Poldark airs in the UK on Sunday 8 March, 9:00 p.m., BBC One. It will be shown in the US on PBS Masterpiece on 14 June, 9:00 p.m. and will air in Australia on ABC some time this year.
For more news of Poldark follow me @Poldarked, Poldarked.com and on Facebook.
