The actor Aidan Turner’s topless scenes in Poldark were some of the most talked about TV moments of the year but the Ripper Street star Matthew Macfadyen has criticised attempts by TV and film studios to make their male stars increasingly hunky.
The former Spooks actor said the growing obsession for male actors to have a six-pack was not true to life and “smacks of vanity”.
Macfadyen, 40, was told to undergo a rigorous diet and fitness regime when he landed the role of Mr Darcy in the 2005 adaptation of Pride And Prejudice.
“You do the deal and then the personal trainer gets in touch,” he told the new issue of Radio Times.
“When I see it on screen, it immediately smacks of vanity because I know what’s happened – they’ve been doing crunches, 50,000 press-ups before breakfast and a character in a period drama wouldn’t have done that.
“Darcy would have been quite fit because he rode horses and all that stuff, but if I ripped off my shirt to show a six-pack... well, that’s a gym thing.”
The former Spooks star added: “I remember when we did Warriors [a 1999 BBC drama about the conflict in former Yugoslavia], we were shooting with squaddies from the Royal Green Jackets – they were the real thing, they’d just come back from Bosnia.
“None of them looked like they’d been anywhere near a gym. They were all supremely fit, they could walk for 25 miles carrying a heavy pack and were working soldiers, so that actor bootcamp thing ... It’s about the actor, not the role.”
His comments come after the Irish actor Aidan Turner caused a stir with shirtless scenes in the BBC1 Cornish saga Poldark.
Turner’s co-star Heida Reed, who played Elizabeth in the drama, branded the attention “ridiculous”, saying: “I think it just undermines the rest of the show.”
Macfadyen is set to play Georg von Trapp in a new film about the family who served as inspiration for The Sound of Music. He also stars in the drama The Enfield Haunting.
He said of his Victorian crime drama Ripper Street being axed by the BBC: “I think there was a new person and anything that wasn’t their baby was ... I don’t know, I really don’t know ... but it’s been a rocky old ride.” The drama has since been picked up by Amazon’s on-demand TV service, and will be repeated on the BBC.
