Will Sharpe has revealed that he was left with a bruised face and broken blood vessels when filming an intense scene in new Netflix series Too Much.
The 38-year-old British actor, whose other credits include Jesse Eisenberg’s Holocaust drama A Real Pain and The White Lotus season two, stars as Felix in the romcom miniseries written and directed by Girls creator Lena Dunham.
The show depicts the tumultuous relationship between Jessica (Megan Stalter), a New Yorker who starts a new job in London following a calamitous break-up, and Felix (Sharpe), a repressed indie musician with a history of hedonism.
The pair’s relationship experiences many ups and downs during the series but reaches breaking point after an ill-fated trip to the vets for Jessica’s beloved dog, Astrid.
As the two characters break down in the street, Dunham instructed the pair to improvise in order to show their frustrations about the situation. In the scene, Sharpe repeatedly slaps himself in the face, an action that took its toll on the star.
“I actually burst some blood vessels and had this big bruise on my face that lasted for ages,” he told GQ.
Elsewhere in the interview, Dunham explained that she cast Sharpe because “it wasn’t that Will was Felix, it was that I could see, inside of Will, the curiosity and depth we wanted Felix to have.”
Dunham co-wrote Too Much with her husband, British musician Luis Felber, and the series is loosely inspired by their relationship.
“I think obviously the seeds of it came from our life, and then once you begin writing, you find out who the characters are and you take a journey that moves away from it,” Dunham told PA.
“I always like to write from a place that begins with the personal, because I think personal stories are universal – and then see what it has in store for me.”
In a three-star review of the show, The Independent’s Nick Hilton wrote: “Romcoms, ultimately, grapple with the question of how to be happy. The comedy is incidental; the romance essential. Dunham flips the script. The fundamental question of Too Much is about the approach to adulthood.
“Should we see it as “a series of things that we don’t want to do but we have to” (Jess’s argument), or “trying to make sure you can do the things that you actually do want to do” (Felix’s rebuttal)? Cutting through the bulls*** means that you must arrive at something more profound, and this is something that Dunham, even when operating in first gear, is singularly equipped to deliver.”
