Blood lust!
Forget Buffy – Matthew Goode says his new drama A Discovery Of Witches, which has forbidden love between a vampire and a sorceress at its heart, is aimed squarely at grown-ups
ALL THE THINGS YOU KNOW ABOUT VAMPIRES ARE TURNED ON THEIR HEAD
With his easy charm, swept-back hair and a deathly pallor about his gaunt face, Matthew Goode is about to become the sexiest vampire to grace the screen since Robert Pattinson’s saturnine Edward Cullen in the Twilight saga. He plays Matthew Clairmont, an enigmatic professor with a taste for blood, in a major new TV adaptation of the bestselling novel A
Discovery Of Witches – the first book in American scholar Deborah Harkness’s All
Souls trilogy. But if you think you’re in for another generic slice of crucifixes and stakes through the heart, think again, says Matthew.
‘We’re so conditioned by what we’ve seen on the screen before that we think all magic is going to be like Harry Potter, and all vampire stuff is going to be the underworld,’ he explains. ‘But it’s not. People expect vampires to have fangs and be frightened of daylight and not like garlic very much. But Clairmont doesn’t have fangs and he prays in churches because he’s a devout Catholic. The opening scene sees him on a bridge warming himself in the dawn sun, so all the things you think you know about vampires are turned on their head.’
The eight-episode series is aimed at a far wider and savvier audience than shows like
Charmed and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It follows American academic and reluctant witch Diana Bishop, who’s in denial about her magical heritage until her discovery in Oxford’s Bodleian Library of Ashmole 782, an ancient mystical manuscript which all the supernatural beings want to get their hands on. This throws her into the heart of a dangerous mystery – and into the path of the vampire professor.
Despite an ancient distrust between witches and vampires, she seeks the help of Matthew Clairmont who is, in fact, a genetithrough cist trying to uncover why his vampire species is dying out. Together they face a barrage of supernatural threats as they probe the book’s secrets, while a forbidden romance blossoms between them. Australian actress Teresa Palmer plays Diana, with Lindsay Duncan as Clairmont’s mother Ysabeau and Trevor Eve as evil vampire Gerbert d’Aurillac. Doctor Who’s Alex Kingston has the role of Diana’s aunt and guardian Sarah Bishop, while Valarie Pettiford is Sarah’s partner Emily. So just how supernatural is A Discovery Of Witches? ‘Everybody keeps challenging me on what the show is,’ says Matthew, 40, who’s best known as Lady Mary’s racy second husband Henry Talbot in
Downton. ‘I’d say the love story between Diana and Matthew is right at the heart of it, but it’s also a thriller and a mystery. It goes the ages. It’s got everything in it. I know a lot of people think because it’s got vampires and witches it’s a sort of teeny-type thing, but it’s not – this is very grown-up.’
The story takes place in a contemporary world where a handful of witches, vampires and daemons live and work among humans, their true natures unrecognised. ‘We try to escape that Gothic thing so that you see they could live among us. I mean, obviously, as vampires, we’re slightly paler but then we live in England where many people are pale,’ laughs Matthew. ‘But all our characters feel like ordinary people with regular jobs. We want viewers to think: “Blimey, these people could live in our world.” So you might be sitting at a table with a vampire and not even know it. It’s not a fantasy world – we were trying to make a different version of a zombie drama.’
Magic is key to the story, and when it happens the special effects go into overdrive. In the crucial scene where Diana attempts to take Ashmole 782 from the Bodleian’s hallowed shelves, all eyes in the library are furtively watching. There are daemons, witches and vampires hiding in plain sight, waiting for this new chapter of her life to be unlocked and begin. ‘I’m reaching for this book and it flies into my hand,’ says Teresa Palmer, who starred with Andrew Garfield in 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge. ‘And when I open it, magic from the book is running down my hands and my chest and onto the table – it’s a bit like The
Matrix with all the green lines running down the screen.’
But she too believes it’s the romance between Clairmont and Diana that’s the key element in the series. ‘It’s an unconventional love story,’ she says, ‘but they are instantly attracted. There’s this unspoken connection, this spark and this chemistry between them. They’re very attracted to each other. You can liken it to Romeo and Juliet – the idea of star-crossed lovers.’
‘Clairmont may be 1,500 years old but he’s still quite spritely,’ adds Matthew. ‘He’s basically a batty professor with a very chequered past. He’s given up feeding on humans and makes a plan to leave Oxford and go up to Scotland to feed on deer. So he’s quite an honourable man but he has to keep himself in check because any human blood can ignite certain senses – it’s called “blood rage” and it’s what sets him off. When he first started feeding he discovered he was uncontrollable, it made him incredibly wild.
‘He even wanted to commit suicide, which can cheese you off a bit if you’ve been told you’re going to live forever.’
Fighting to destroy the relationship between Clairmont and Diana
THERE’S A SPARK BETWEEN THEM. YOU CAN LIKEN IT TO ROMEO AND JULIET
– and indeed Clairmont himself – is Trevor Eve’s sinister and seriously powerful vampire Gerbert d’Aurillac, a former pope. For Trevor, who played the young protagonist Jonathan Harker in Laurence Olivier’s Dracula film in 1979, it was fun to change sides. ‘I was on the good side then, it was me and Sir Laurence tracking down Frank Langella as Count Dracula. Now I’m on the bad side,’ says Trevor, 67. ‘You can’t really resist when someone calls you up and says: “Do you want to play a 1,000-year-old vampire?”’ Gerbert is based on Sylvester II, who was Pope from the year 999 to his death in 1003 and faced accusations of sorcery. ‘I have special powers that give me superhuman strength so I can hear, sense and smell anything,’ says Trevor. ‘But apart from a longer beard and shorter hair I look normal. I’m Clairmont’s nemesis because of something his father did to me 500 years ago. He’s also broken his society’s rules by consorting with a witch. So I get to come up against all the witches and give them a hard time. I use a vampire named Juliette – played by Elarica Johnson – as the bait for Clairmont. Gerbert can see where she’s been and what she’s done by tasting her blood.’
However, there were problems filming the blood-sucking scenes. ‘We were working in a beautiful room with a 14th-century panelled wardrobe,’ says Trevor. ‘The director said: “Okay, so Elarica’s got some padding on her back, now hurl her against this cupboard.” And about six people ran up and said: “No. They’re super-valuable old panels of wood.” But he said: “I don’t care, hurl her against her it.” So we got pillows in the end and buffered Elarica and she got thrown. It softened the blow but they weren’t worried about her, they were worried about this priceless cupboard!’
Matthew, who has three children with his wife Sophie, has always had the gift of an almost supernatural beauty. So much so that it’s helped
him forge a glittering career playing a portfolio of prepossessing characters from the dashing Charles Ryder in the 2008 remake of Brideshead Revisited, to the British toff in Woody Allen’s Match Point alongside Scarlett Johansson, and the rakish Lord Snowdon in The Crown.
It was his role as Lady Mary’s fast car-driving love interest Henry Talbot in Downton Abbey that put him firmly in the spotlight though. He had always wanted to be in Downton but it hadn’t quite worked out until he happened to be working with Michelle Dockery, who played Lady Mary, on the 2015 sci-fi film
Self/Less and they had such a hoot that she asked him: ‘Would you like to come and marry me in Downton?’ And so he did.
Statuesque, with an affable charm and a sharp sense of humour, it’s no wonder he’s a hit with his co-stars. He similarly hit it off with Teresa Palmer, who uprooted her husband Mark and two young sons Bodhi and Forest for the six-month shoot in Wales.
‘I’ve never seen anyone work so tirelessly,’ says Matthew. ‘Teresa really is like an earth mother. And she’s fully vegan. Normally when I meet a vegan I think: “Uh-oh, I’m not sure this is going to go particularly well.” But she’s one of the great vegans. It’s quite funny though, when as a vampire I’m thinking: “I’d like to take a bite out of her.”’
A Discovery Of Witches starts on Friday, September 14 at 9pm on Sky One and Now TV.