Five Minutes With… Alex Hassell
The Rivals star talks Disney+’s Jilly Cooper adaptation, playing the “intimidating” showjumper-turned-politician Rupert Campbell-Black and why actors should be brave enough to take on challenging roles.
Almost a year after filming wrapped on Rivals, the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s novel, star Alex Hassell admits it has been quite difficult to adjust back to real life. After watching the series, it’s clear why.
For the seven-month shoot, the actor was immersed in a world full of the drama and shocking antics of the power-grabbing social elite of 1980s England, to tell a story that exposes the ruthless world of independent television in 1986 – and much more.
Against this backdrop, Hassell plays Rupert Campbell-Black, the Olympic showjumper-turned-politician and serial womaniser who constantly clashes with Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant), the unscrupulous, ruthless MD of Corinium Television. Desperate to retain his broadcast franchise, Tony hires Irish star Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner) to front a new talkshow alongside ambitious US producer Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams).
But when a rival consortium threatens Corinium’s future, Rutshire neighbours Rupert and Tony go head-to-head in a series that is packed with sex, scandal, parties and all the excess of the 1980s.
Directed by Elliot Hegarty, Dee Koppang O’Leary and Alexandra Brodski, the show’s cast also includes Claire Rushbrook (Monica Baddingham), Victoria Smurfit (Maud O’Hara), Bella Maclean (Taggie O’Hara), Danny Dyer (Freddie Jones), Lisa McGrillis (Valerie Jones), Luke Pasqualino (Bas Baddingham), Emily Atack (Sarah Stratton), Rufus Jones (Paul Stratton), Katherine Parkinson (Lizzie Vereker) and Oliver Chris (James Vereker).
Rivals is executive produced by Dominic Treadwell-Collins (A Very English Scandal), Alexander Lamb (Ackley Bridge), Felicity Blunt, Laura Wade (The Riot Club), Jilly Cooper and Lee Mason. Treadwell-Collins and Wade wrote the scripts alongside the series’ episodic writers room, which included Sophie Goodhart (The Baby), Marek Horn (Wild Swimming), Mimi Hare & Clare Naylor (The Accidental Husband), Dare Aiyegbayo (The Dumping Ground), Kefi Chadwick (Looted). Happy Prince is the producer.
Here, Hassell tells DQ about starring in the series, the different rivalries on screen and how he approached Rupert’s numerous sex scenes.
Were you familiar with Jilly Cooper’s brand of storytelling before taking on Rivals?
I hadn’t read any of Jilly’s work, although I understood the kind of thing it was. I wasn’t initially sent the script; it was the audition scenes and a precis of it. There was a description of Rupert as he is in the books, and I thought, ‘I’m not going to get this part. Why am I auditioning for this?’ I said to my agents, ‘I don’t think this is worth it.’ Thankfully they convinced me to audition for it, and somehow I managed to get the part.
In the process of that, I read a lot more about it, read the scripts and was like, ‘Oh wow.’ It’s a great world. Jilly’s writing is so fun and so wide; there are so many characters in this world she’s created, and the writers have done such a phenomenal job to put on camera and evolve all of her work into what would work in a modern TV show. It’s a wonderful world to play in.
The show opens with Rupert having sex in a toilet onboard Concorde. How would you describe your character?
He’s an international playboy lothario. That’s part of Jilly’s description – he’s Mecca for most women, which is a pretty intimidating mantle to attempt to fill. In our scripts, he’s described as the most eligible bachelor in the UK, which is easier [to portray] because he’s extremely rich and privileged, and an Olympian. I could coast along on those things. He definitely makes very questionable decisions.
He’s often led by his hunger and lust, and likes to not follow the set rules of society or the society in which he finds himself. He’s addicted to the chase, but also a high-stakes world – not necessarily gambling, but in terms of his sports background, he’s extremely competitive. He wants to win everything and beat everyone and take everything and consume everything. That is in contrast to a private loneliness and a feeling he’s burnt all of his bridges and he’s just rattling around this gothic castle, trying to work out what happened. He’s not a very reflective person, but then he meets these new characters and finds himself being drawn in unusual directions.
Very quickly, we see Tony and Declan plot his downfall as Rupert becomes drawn to Declan’s daughter Taggie…
Well, he’s best when backed into a corner so he manages to twist and turn his way out of things. In Rupert’s case, the public love it when he’s a shit and gets away with it. There’s definitely some of that going on. He gets caught between feelings for a number of women and how to navigate that. But he also starts to make new male friendships, he struggles to be the only alpha, I guess. It’s really good frothy fun, high-stakes stuff that they’re all trying to take on, especially against Tony. Tony is a proper arsehole and a very bad man and needs to be taken down. So that’s a big part of the plot.
Who are the rivals in Rivals?
The main tentpole rivalry, I guess, is between Rupert and Tony and, to begin with, Declan and Rupert, but then some of those allegiances change. Then a lot of the other characters have rivalries between one another and also infidelities that stoke a lot of those things. The tentpole characters are those male characters. But actually there are a lot of brilliantly realised women. It’s like Jilly understood when she was writing [the book] that she had to slide in all of these really important female characters rather than making them explicitly the main characters. So there are these brilliantly realised female characters too, who all have their own rivalries and are struggling against the system.
In series such as Cowboy Bebop and His Dark Materials, you’ve worn elaborate costumes to play fantastical characters. But here, you’re often wearing no clothing at all. How exposing was it to playing Rupert?
There are lots of different threads to that. One main one is that I am very different from Rupert as a person, so in no way was it that they found someone very much like Rupert and cast them. It was a big mental leap, but obviously you’re trying to fill it with your own emotional life and make it real.
I always felt like I was being Rupert, but with all of my clothes off. It was immediately made clear that that would be that content and that was part of the legacy of Rupert as a character. Therefore, it was a hugely important part of the role – and to be honest, it’s always weird. Doing sex scenes is a weird thing, but we all got on really well, thankfully, and that makes it so much easier. And of course, there’s intimacy coordination and everyone is very conscious to make sure everyone’s comfortable and happy and all boundaries are taken into account in everything.
But in terms of nudity, part of the job as an actor is to try to be brave and put yourself in a position that few people either get the opportunity to be in or have the course in their lives to be in. Part of the job is to attempt to be brave enough to put yourself in a weird position.
What was your experience like on set making the series?
It’s such a great cast; they’re brilliant actors and they’re so well cast and are so good at the roles and all such lovely, funny people. We all had a really good, similarly filthy, sense of humour. So that was really funny and really helpful. I loved so much of it, but there were so many times when we were all together because there’s lots of parties, and that’s just hilarious seeing all of the interactions between everyone.
In one of the green rooms, there was a ping-pong table and everyone got very competitive about that. Everybody was just trying to out-improvise each other as well, which is really fun. But at the same time, lots of the one-on-one, intimate acting moments, when you start to get under the character’s veneer – that’s really pleasurable. And for me, it was fun to play the balance of Rupert’s real public persona when he’s swaggering around the place and then the more intimate side of it. Often that would be with Bella playing Taggie or sometimes Katherine playing Lizzie. I also love riding the horses and playing with dogs. To be honest, it was a ridiculous dream job.
So there’s more to Rupert than it first appears?
He wouldn’t be as much of a beloved character from the books as he is if it weren’t for the fact that he reveals more and more as the story progresses. We’ve certainly tried to do that.
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