Meet Sunday night TV’S reluctant new heart-throb
Tom Bateman will set pulses racing in new ITV drama ‘Beecham House’. But, he tells Guy Kelly, he doesn’t want to be a celebrity
‘When a character takes their top off and has a sixpack, the illusion is broken’
Tom Bateman suspected this might come up. In a breathtakingly lifeless meeting room in central London, we are part-way through a discussion about his role as the heart-throb lead in ITV’S new Sunday night period drama, Beecham House, when I just have to ask: that topless scything scene in the first episode – was it completely necessary?
“People have mentioned that…” he says, with only slight exasperation. “It’s not for me to say whether the heads of whatever company thought there needed to be a shirtless scene, but for me it was justified.”
Some context: Beecham House is an upstairs-downstairs drama set in a Delhi mansion in 1795, written and directed by Gurinder Chadha. Bateman plays John Beecham, an English soldier who resigns from the military to set up at a mansion as an honourable trader, thereby distancing himself from other troops in the East India Company, who mistreat locals and take whatever they please.
Beecham is brooding and handsome, with wavy dark locks, a strong thicket of chest hair and the kind of all-over tan that says, “Sure, I like to undertake light agricultural work half-naked as much as the next man, especially if that next man is, say, Ross Poldark.”
In the opening episode, he has barely unpacked before we see him stripped to the waist, hacking away at some crops with a machete (OK, it’s not strictly scything). The moment
almost feels as if Chadha is making a sly nod at the show’s BBC rival – but “the character is doing something practical”, Bateman insists. “And, you know, India is unbelievably hot, so the idea of doing manual labour in full costume would actually have looked stranger than taking my top off.”
Beecham House makes fine Sunday night television, and Bateman – charming and politely bashful in person – makes a fine Sunday night television hunk, albeit not an absurdly beefy one. The 30-year-old, who generally “keeps healthy and does a bit of exercise”, deliberately didn’t hit the gym after he read the script, because they didn’t exist in the 18th century.
“There’s no point in the story when we see John pumping iron, so I was like, ‘he’s not going to look like Captain America is he?’” he says. “I’m not going to name names, but there are some things I watch when I am completely engrossed, then a character takes their top off and they have a six-pack, and that’s where the illusion is broken for me. I realise I’m watching a drama designed for a certain audience.”
In what is arguably Bateman’s biggest role yet – he appeared as co-lead on stage in Shakespeare
in Love, and you may recognise him from ITV’S Vanity Fair and Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on
the Orient Express – he also has the unenviable challenge of showing the East India Company’s role in India wasn’t all exploitative.
“Before I took it, I knew the bits most people knew, which is that they went over there and it was OK, then they became the really bad guys,” he says. He boned up by heading to Waterstones and asking to read “everything on the history of India”. He learnt a lot.
“The world is never black and white, and in this we have characters trying to do their best. There are straight-up bad guys who fit the more ‘woke’ view – that they turned up and tried to take as much as possible,” he says, “but while it never felt like we were doing a hugely political drama, we’re questioning empire.” Bateman can’t speak highly enough of Chadha, who made Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice. She allowed him to add more Urdu lines, made sure the cast contained as many Indian actors as possible, and even made filming sex scenes fun. “Those scenes are always OK if you’re in good hands,” Bateman says. As a result, there was “no need” for an intimacy coordinator. “You suddenly become very British, like the Martin Freeman character in Love Actually, but Gurinder was very respectful, she just got everyone off the set and kept the jokes going.”
He must be used to being part of a large ensemble. Born and raised near Oxford, Bateman is one of 14 siblings (some are half) whose ages range between 27 and 43, and has a twin brother, Merlin. He’s the only actor, but the brood also includes a sheep-farmer sister, a waiter, a teacher, a dental technician, a Red Cross worker, an air hostess, another teacher, an estate agent and a biologist based in Canada.
“It was a busy house, but it felt normal, not crazy. We grew up in a two up, two down,” he says. Both his parents were teachers, and while they couldn’t financially support him, they “couldn’t care less, in the best way” when he announced he wanted to act. The benefit is he at least has more than a dozen diehard fans.
“Exactly! That should be my pitch to producers: ‘if you cast me, you’ve already sold out three rows…’”
After a smooth ascent through theatre and television, he now finds himself on the precipice of Very Famous. Between Murder on the Orient Express and its follow-up, the forthcoming Death on the Nile, he played a killer opposite Liam Neeson in Cold Pursuit. It was a tough role
– but probably a walk in the park compared to sitting next to Neeson in that interview, in which the Northern Irishman told a story about once wandering the streets in the hope he could kill “some black b------” to avenge a friend who had been raped.
“It was bizarre,” Bateman says, faltering even at the memory. “He’s come out and apologised, hasn’t he? We had a really interesting discussion and out came this story (…) I remember being very shocked and it had an impact on me. It’s Liam’s thing, I never talked to him about it.”
If Bateman is on the edge of major fame, his girlfriend, the Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley – though such is the pair’s mutual omertà on the matter, neither has ever confirmed their relationship – is already there. When they’ve been photographed together lately, she’s worn a sparkling ring on her left hand, driving the internet wild. Today Bateman has a silver band on his ring finger. Are they married already?
“Oh… I’m just wearing some jewellery,” he says, in what may or may not have been mild panic. Later he’ll hide that hand for our photographs. “I’m one of those old-fashioned people who keeps their private life private.”
He really does. He has no social media: “For actors, the idea is that you convince people you’re someone you’re not… I don’t think people care what I had for breakfast. I don’t like to feel like I’m being looked at all the time.”
Next Sunday night, though, there’ll be millions of eyes on him. “I don’t want to be a celebrity; I want to be an actor. No one chases Ralph Fiennes, you don’t see him in magazines getting out of a car. But they do to people like Ben Affleck.” And Aidan Turner, and Tom Hiddleston… He sighs. “I hope that doesn’t happen to me, because I’m happy how it is. I suppose it’s the price for a show being a success.”
Tom Bateman: the reluctant phwoar. Go easy on him.