Aidan Turner "I Love a Bit of Boxing"

BBC

In the first episode of Poldark Ross (Aidan Turner) gets into a fight with Tom Carne (Mark Frost). We've talked before about Aidan doing fight scenes  in his various roles, so how did he find it this time?

In an interview with Metro Aidan said, ‘Yes, it was a pretty full-on scrap in the first episode. When I saw the size of the guys I was facing, I thought “hang on”.

‘But I love a bit of boxing. Actors need to bring a lot of skills to the table these days.’ 

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Aidan went on to talk about his fellow cast member, the late Warren Clarke saying, ‘His impact on the show was tremendous. At the first rehearsals we did, everyone was a bit daunted and then we realised that Warren was doing an imitation of Tommy Cooper. It cracked us up: he was doing it to bring everyone together. We were all on the same level after that.’

And  Robin Ellis, the original Ross who plays Reverend Halse?  ‘I didn’t really talk about Ross with Robin because there was a common ground there that we both felt, without words. ‘But I had this big scene in the courtroom and Ross is really going for it and I caught Robin’s eye and the look he gave… it felt like he’d given me the green light to play him.’

So did he now feel the romantic hero? He said, ‘I certainly didn’t when I was filming, because when you’re doing it you’re immersed in the character. But you see the playback and Ross is galloping across the clifftops and Demelza’s looking gorgeous and you think, “is that me up there? It can’t get more romantic than this”.’