Poldark’s Aidan Turner, 39, stars in ITV’s latest thriller – as a clinical psychologist hiding some dark secrets…
How did this come about?
After I read the scripts, it was a pretty quick decision. I was gripped. The story has an eerie feel to it from the beginning and as an audience we’re not sure what part Joe has to play in it. He works as a clinical psychologist; he’s married with a daughter. And what seems like an easy thing to cover up spirals into this world of paranoia and the unknown. What’s he done?
Joe becomes involved in a police investigation into the murder of a young woman. Joe’s a flawed character – he makes impulsive and risky decisions knowing that there could be consequences later. It makes him unpredictable and sometimes unreliable, which is refreshing to play.
He has early onset Parkinson’s… When we meet Joe, he’s just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. So, you wonder if what’s going on with him is part of the condition - or is it a veil to cover something else? As research, I met a musician who has been dealing with the condition for five years. It doesn’t generally affect younger people, and every day is a different challenge.
How did you play that?
It’s like anything, you do as much research as you can. We talked about how I would play the tremors [from Parkinson’s] in a scene, we wanted to keep them subtle but enough for it to read on camera. Getting it right was important, Parkinson’s affects people in different ways.
And Joe saves a man from jumping off a building…
That was quite involved to film, you’re only about 15 or 20 feet up – but that was enough for me! I’m not great with heights and although it was totally safe, I was thinking, ‘I wouldn’t want to fall from here and I don’t see any crash mats, this isn’t exactly fun!’ But visually it looks pretty impressive, and Joe then becomes a bit of a media hero… Let’s talk facial hair…
I happened to have a beard at the time the offer to play
Joe came in, so it begged the question - what do we do with the beard? Shave it off? Keep it? We kept it. It felt right for Joe…
How was working on the show? I really enjoyed it. The role was challenging, the material was strong, and everyone looked like they were having fun on set every day. Very fond memories – and it’s a good time to be working in TV…