An Episode With: Tom Bateman
Des Sampson talks to the star of Beecham House about being cast as a heart-throb
Are you ready to be a heart-throb and have loads of women run down the street after you? Hmm ... how would you get ready for that? I don’t think you can get ready for that. With all these things, I think if that happens it just means people loved the show. So I suppose my thought is, “How wonderful that people love it.” I really hope people like it because it’s been a joy making it and I hope it does something new. When I told my mum and dad about it — they’re my litmus test — they were really excited because it’s new and quite political. India is hugely a part of it — it’s in every scene — it’s just there, you can see the heat and the light — so I hope that, at the very least, people go, “Wow, I’ve not seen that before.”
Do you worry about being typecast as the heart-throb?
You know what, no, because I’ve played arseholes ... a bunch of bad guys recently, so it’s quite nice to play a good person and there’s a couple of things that I’m about to start filming where I’m not like that at all.
Did you realise that the minute you took off your top everyone would compare you to Aidan Turner, in Poldark? It’s become a thing now, hasn’t it?
I’ve never seen Poldark but I did see the pictures in the paper the next day. Did I know? No, not really. I knew what it was — I’m not stupid. I knew there’s certain boxes, I suppose, that are there to be ticked. But one of them made sense — the action was there — he was doing it for practical reasons. Standing still in India you’re sweating, so there’s no way you’d be clothed.
Did you feel objectified at all?
No, no. You feel a bit ... there’s a funny line between feeling objectified and feeling supported and it’s a very odd one ... Gurinder’s [director Gurinder Chadha] wonderful at making you not feel like an idiot but at the same time she doesn’t cross the line into pervy. And she sort of said, “Ooh, you look fantastic — it’s a great scene” and then she goes ... and she sort of made some comment about people being sat behind the monitor going, “Oooh,” which didn’t make me feel uncomfortable because, by that point, we were a big, old family and so I just felt supported and we were all making fun of each other. But hilariously, that scene was a nightmare because it was the first time I was topless outside and we were filming right below a hornet’s nest. And the smoke we used for the scene aggravated the hornets and they came after the whole crew [so] we had to move locations for the afternoon — we couldn’t go back there until it was sorted out. I did a little bit of a topless scene, then went away and then came back and did [more of] of a topless scene after lunch.
How do feel about the notion of love at first sight?
I’m not sure about it, especially in relation to Beecham House. Both Dakota [Dakota Blue Richards] and I had rehearsals before the shoot and, quite early on, we talked to Gurinder about how we didn’t like the “love at first sight” thing because it felt a bit contrived. So, what we wanted to try and work out — and I hope we did — was a sort of understanding of each other and just from that beginning bit with, “Where are you from?” ... “Devon. ” “Oh, that’s lovely ... ” No one else knows about Devon but we both know how beautiful Devon is, so a friendship — a mutual kind of friendship comes — and then it sort of grew.
But there’s definitely a spark ...
Yes, there’s a spark but also, you’ve got six hours of drama to fill and if you hit the ground with “I’m in love with you and I want to be with you” and “So am I ... ” there’s nowhere to go.
What was it like working with a baby? It’s like acting cocaine! You don’t need to do anything; you just sort of ... the baby’s there [played by twin girls from London — Shona and Sienna] and the scene happens. You’ll be doing a scene, holding this baby, and she’s grabbing your face so you kind of have to interact with this baby, so out comes this very free performance, I think.
Did you become clucky? Yes, I kind of loved them. They’re wonderful little babies. Of course, after a while you’re a bit like, “Okay, I’m done here.” But there’s something very sweet about them. There was one scene where [the baby] had to be asleep on my chest and they got her asleep and I couldn’t put her down, or give her away because she’d wake up again, so I just had to sit there for 2-3 hours with this baby while they changed shots and it was wonderful, really, because I got to sit quietly in a corner with a baby on me and have people bring me cups of tea. I remember thinking, “There’s harder ways to make a living.”
What about the sets, the architecture of the buildings you were filming in?
They’re so unbelievable. I don’t know if it does it justice. Everyone got their cameras out when we were there. India is just amazing. We’d sit and have our lunch and then you didn’t want to go back to work because you’re just looking out over this most incredible view and there’s this sort of wall, almost like a mini wall of China sort of sweeping down to the town. So it took your breath away.
Did you get to see the Taj Mahal? Yes, we finished filming there, at the Taj Mahal. That was our last day of filming. That was one hell of a way to finish.
Is it true you had to rope in tourists for some scenes?
Yeah, it is. When we were filming Greg’s army — the French army — we needed a lot of Europeans, so they went down to some of the local backpacker places and said who wants to earn £50? That was the only way to find them [Europeans] in India.