THE NAKED TRUTH
Lara Pulver gained instant notoriety as the dominatrix who shocked Sherlock Holmes while wearing nothing but a pair of stilettos – but will her latest role as leatherclad vampire lead to a new body of work?
‘The real nightmare was being nude but not actually being able to show nudity’
Lara Pulver is the actress who scandalised
Sherlock viewers in the most infamous scene in the show’s fiveyear history. As smart, sphinx-like dominatrix Irene Adler she also managed to steal the show from under the nose of Benedict Cumberbatch, a fact all the more remarkable when you consider that she was naked bar a pair of diamond earrings and some spike-heeled Louboutin stilettos. The 111-second, pre-watershed scene caused uproar, with a record number of complaints to the BBC – and a record 2.5 million views on the BBC iPlayer.
‘When I was offered the part, I didn’t even notice the nude scene,’ she says. ‘For me it was about going up against Benedict and Martin [Freeman] and trying to hold my own. The fact I had to do it naked – well, that was another story.
‘It completely changed the way I was perceived. I’d been in the business for 15 years before Sherlock [in musical theatre and TV], so I’d been around a long time but suddenly I had casting agents calling my agent saying: “Where has she been hiding?”’
Since that show-stopping appearance in 2012, the 36-year-old actress’s life has been transformed. She has starred in a movie with Tom Cruise (Edge Of Tomorrow) and won a Laurence Olivier Award for her role in the West End production of Gypsy.
Today she is in London to talk about her latest role, in Blood Wars, the fifth instalment of the vampire franchise Underworld with actress Kate Beckinsale.
In Blood Wars, Pulver plays a vampire called Semira and has to squeeze herself into several tight leather outfits and wear a ‘headpiece that looks like a futuristic Walnut Whip’.
‘The costumes were incredibly tight,’ she says. ‘But because I was training non-stop, learning how to fight with axes, swords and rapiers I was incredibly fit, so it wasn’t a problem.
‘I’m 5ft 2in and Kate is about 5ft 8in, so I had to wear six-inch heels to bring me up to the same height, and that meant running, fighting and throwing axes in heels. But I managed not to fall over.’
Speaking on the eve of the longawaited new Sherlock series (which kicks off tonight), she is well aware that her nude encounter with Baker Street’s finest continues to define her career, especially when she followed it up with a scene flogging the supersleuth with a riding crop.
‘She’s a dominatrix,’ laughs Pulver. ‘That’s her job.’
Cumberbatch later complained she had left him covered in welts. She raises an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t see any welts. If anything, he asked me to hit him harder.’
She looks slightly amused by the continued furore and reveals that fans dress up as the dominatrix and get her to autograph their whips.
For that scene she had to spend eight hours naked in front of Cumberbatch and Freeman. ‘The character was so well drawn that her being naked was just one big power play,’ says Pulver. ‘I completely understood her. She’s a dominatrix who wants to play games and I scoured the internet for information on, and tips from, real-life dominatrixes. I remember saying to Benedict before we started, “All your female fans are going to hate me now.”
‘The truth is, the real nightmare
was being nude but not actually being able to show any nudity because we were filming a prewatershed show. I was wearing stick-on, flesh-coloured pads.’
Afterwards, she was offered a slew of parts ‘where the script would begin “woman naked in bed, man fully clothed”’. She arches an immaculately shaped eyebrow. ‘I didn’t want to go down that route. In this business you only have longevity if you choose your parts carefully.’
Since graduating from drama school, Pulver has chosen well. She broke into television with shows such as Robin Hood, True Blood and Spooks.
She married actor Josh Dallas in 2007 but they divorced four years later. A year after, she met current husband Raza Jaffrey on the set of Spooks. They married in 2014 and live in Los Angeles, but Pulver claims it is ‘a lifestyle choice, not a career choice. LA has incredible weather, you have more space. It’s so easy to go hiking, skiing, be close to nature. We don’t spend time hanging out at parties – we’re more likely to be walking in the hills or hiking’.
For now, Pulver remains somewhat typecast.
‘Sherlock changed the perception of me,’ she admits, before pointing to her face. ‘I have these cheekbones and this face that suggest very middle-class or period-drama roles. I want to show everyone there’s much more to me than Irene Adler.’ Blood Wars opens on January 13