MUST-SEE SHOWS
WHEN Eleanor Tomlinson signed up to star in a brooding drama set in 18th-century Cornwall, she had no idea the impact it would have on her life. Rewind to 2015 and the then-21year-old unknown would play heroine Demelza in the TV adaptation of Winston Graham’s novels, Poldark, the servant-turnedwife of Aidan Turner’s Captain Ross Poldark.
It was a career-igniting role – and duet – that wooed the nation for five series, winning Baftas and culminating with a finale this August that drew in an average of 4.1 million-plus viewers. Quite the achievement.
Now aged 27, and having stepped out of her alter-ego’s shadow (other than still sporting the dyed red hair she adopted for the part), Eleanor is keen to forge her own path. One she hopes is free from typecasting.
“I’m trying my best to force it to change,” Eleanor explains when we meet. “I’m trying to get as many different roles as I can under my belt, different characters, different periods – I don’t want to be pigeonholed!”
“But I’m so flattered to be known as Demelza,” she’s quick to add.
“I love the fact I have that behind me, and I can walk into a room and people may have seen it.”
“It’s opened so many doors in terms of what’s available now, things I’ll be seen for that I wouldn’t have been seen for before,” she insists.
Her latest outing is in the BBC’s highly anticipated The War Of The Worlds adaptation, a three-part TV reworking written by Doctor Who’s Peter Harness and directed by the notable Craig Viveiros.
Eleanor – who embraced the high-action part – joins Rafe Spall, Robert Carlyle and Rupert Graves in recreating HG Wells’ iconic sci-fi story about the battle to save Earth from a Martian invasion.
Remarkably it’s the first revision (there are seven in total – from Jeff Wayne’s musical version through to Stephen Spielberg’s Hollywood blockbuster) that’s true to its intended Edwardian era.
“It does seem crazy that it’s never been set in its time!” says Eleanor,