Bodyguard star: a green juice a day helps keep paparazzi away
Actor Richard Madden always carries the same e drink to repel intrusive press photographers
MEL GIBSON donned a fake nose se and moustache, Dustin Hoffman hid id behind postboxes and Michelle Dockery ockery would pretend to be a rich American erican named Britney to avoid the limelight. ight.
But the secret to staying under wraps when out in public, according ding to
Bodyguard star Richard Madden, n, is to be photographed while clutching tching green juice.
Revealing his favourite paparazzi arazzi deterrent, the actor told The New w York
Times: “There’s only so many photos you can have of me with a green n juice walking down the street. I just keep ep my personal life personal,” he added.
But unlike his unassuming TV V character DC David Budd, the 32-year-old’s r-old’s approach has put him front and centre of countless images holding a smoothie oothie while walking through Los Angeles. les.
Scotland-born Madden, who plays Sir Elton John’s former lover and d manager John Reid in Rocketman, was s reasserting his calls for privacy after repeated speculation and questions stions about his own love life.
“I’ve never talked about my relation- ationships,” he said.
Madden also said he wore the same clothes for days at a time, as Daniel Radcliffe did at the height of his Harry Potter fame.
“I wear the same clothes days ys in a row, because if it looks like the same day, they can’t run the pictures,” s,” he told the newspaper.
Radcliffe sported the same green en hat and zipped-up jacket for six months nths in London, to make any fresh pictures ures of him appear dated.
“They could take photos for or six months, but it would look like the e same day. They became unpublishable – which was hilarious, because there’s nothing better than seeing the paparazzi get really frustrated,” said Radcliffe in 2007 when he was appearing in Equus at London’s Gielgud Theatre.
Madden’s strategy reflects his conviction that interest in his appearance can affect his job.
When asked about the interest in his looks following a naked scene as close protection officer Budd, Madden said: “I worry sometimes about it affecting my job. If people go, ‘Oh, you know, he’s that hunky thing,’ then it undermines that actually I’m an actor, and I’m trying really hard to be good at it.”
Meanwhile, he acknowledged that for some, there is an appeal to the attention that comes with living in his new home, Hollywood.
He said: “I’ll be at hotels and restaurants where they’ll tell you, ‘There’s paparazzi in the front, do you want to go out the front or go out the back?’ And you go, ‘Who wants to go out the front?’ And they say, ‘Oh, quite a lot of people!’”
Madden made the comments as Taron Egerton, who plays Elton John in Rocketman, said he was “crestfallen” that the film had been censored in Russia.
“Love is love. No compromises,” he wrote online after hearing that the sex scenes between the two actors had been cut out there.
‘There is only so many photos you can have of me with a green juice walking down the street’