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| photo via EmpireOnLine |
Happy
Birthday, Aidan Turner!
Aidan is 31
today and is spending the day on the set of Poldark, a new BBC period
drama in which he plays the lead character Ross. Aidan is aware he's stepping into to a well loved role with Ross but says, 'He has been done before. I haven't watched it. So I get to start all over again.' In what is proving to be a
busy year, Aidan is filming Poldark from now until September
followed by, possibly, making the film Inferno and all topped off
with the press junkets and premieres for The Hobbit: The Battle of the
Five Armies. Not bad for a boy who left school with no notion of what he wanted
to do!
Aidan was
born in Clondalkin, South Dublin, in a house in which he lived throughout his
childhood with his mum, dad, and brother. He says, ‘I was born in that house in
that living room. I spent 20 years in that house and it's very close to my
heart, but I don't get to see it much now.’
He left
school knowing he didn’t want to do anything ‘mundane’ and signed up for a six
week ‘Acting for Camera’ course because he thought it looked ‘like a laugh.’ He
says, ‘I did ballroom and Latin American dancing for about 10 years; I even
represented Ireland. So I did have a flair for the creative.’ There may be more
to it than that though for, when asked about any history of acting in his
family he says, ‘I’m the break-out. Ours was an arts-friendly household,’ which
may well be a reference to his grandmother, an amateur actress and stalwart of
her local theatre group for many years. His grandmother also enjoys dancing
and is no doubt pleased that Aidan lists Ballroom, Jive, Latin American, Salsa,
and Tango among his dancing skills.
Aidan says,
'The "Acting for Camera" class was a game changer for me. The buzz of
walking "on stage" …was a rush I hadn’t quite achieved through
anything else up to that point in my life. And so naturally, I loved it.’
That buzz led
to Aidan training at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin. He graduated in
2004 and within a few weeks was jetting off to Portugal to shoot a couple of
adverts for Irish television. Each ad took a day to film and must have been a
great introduction to trying to look fresh and new take after take for, as the
days progressed, the actors found it harder and harder to swallow the drink they
were promoting, some spitting it out after each take!
Within his
first year as an actor Aidan was performing at The Barbican, one of London’s
top theatres, in The Plough and the Stars. There followed several years of
acting both in fringe and mainstream theatre, as he went from the black vest
and snakeskin trousers of the award winning Titus Andronicus (in
which Sarah Greene, who is now his girlfriend, also appeared) to being suited
and booted in Romeo and Juliet. In Cyrano, Aidan stole the show as
Christian and was hailed by critics as 'The next James Bond'.
From 2007,
Aidan began to get roles in television and film. He played the lead in the
feature film Alarm which was released in 2008. Around this time Aidan
was cast in the Irish television drama The Clinic and, playing the
receptionist Ruairí McGowan, found himself nominated for Favourite Newcomer to
Irish TV in the Now TV Awards 2009.
Then,
‘without the safety net of an actual job,’ Aidan moved to London, where he soon
found work playing a vampire Mitchell in what was to become the award-winning
BBC drama, Being Human.
More
television roles followed. He played the artist Rossetti in Desperate
Romantics (his audition tape for which was filmed by his friend and
fellow Being Human actor Russell Tovey) and the cad John Schofield in
the critically acclaimed biopic Hattie, in which another The
Hobbit actor John Bell was also cast.
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| Aidan and his LEGO figure Photo Credit: Nicoletta Steiger |
Aidan says of
working on The Hobbit, ‘It was amazing, being flown out to the other side
of the world, being part of the Peter Jackson experience. As Kili I’ve got my
own Lego figure and I’m on a caramel latte cup in Germany. How did that
happen?’
In 2014, the
public voted Aidan best male newcomer in the Jameson Empire awards. While the
category of newcomer may seem slightly incongruous, there’s no doubting his
delight at winning and being able to share the evening with fellow The
Hobbit actors Richard Armitage, Adam Brown, James Nesbitt and Stephen Fry.
Commenting on his win Aidan blushed, ‘I had no idea I had this kind of support.
It’s deeply humbling.’
In his free time Aidan loves
playing pool and says he's 'completely obsessed' with it. He's even built a
pool hall at his parent's home which he says is 'a proper man-cave'. He also
plays tennis, squash and badminton but, although he learned to ride for The Hobbit, is unlikely to take up horse riding just yet saying, 'I don't know if they'll let me. If I injure myself on the job I'm fine but in my own personal time, I'll be killed! I'd never get away with it!'
On this his
birthday we know that Poldark producers Mammoth Screen, along with
with Aidan Turner Forever, are throwing him a surprise party on
the Poldark set, so we hope he has a lot of fun. Here’s wishing
Aidan a fabulous birthday from Poldarked.
With thanks
to BBC News, Article Magazine, Irish Weekend and Gaiety School of Acting.
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