Shropshire-born Poldark actor reveals ‘body transformation’
He is the Poldark bad guy, the repulsive vicar Osborne Whitworth who has taken the drama into a dark avenue of domestic abuse.
Shropshire-born actor Christian Brassington today described how he had to bulk up to take on the role.
His character is at the centre of a brutal rape scene in which he attacks his young wife Morwenna.
It is a challenging role for the actor, who spent his early years in Wellington, Telford, but who later learned his trade at London’s Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.
The actor, who previously played Tony Blair in his university years, ate 3,500 calories a day to go from 13 stone to 15.
“I ate a diet that included some protein shakes but it was mostly Haagen-Dazs ice cream and beer,” the 34-year-old said.
“I quite enjoyed putting the weight on to start with but near the end I didn’t so much – and now I am trying to lose it, which is no fun at all. It takes much longer to lose weight than to put it on.
“The producers didn’t demand I put on the weight but this character, he’s a big guy and he needs to be like that and I love that side of things.
“I like losing the weight, putting on the weight and transforming the body for the part. I hope it looks good.”
On competing with Poldark’s leading man Aidan Turner, 34, he adds with a laugh: “I am going to do some topless modelling at my top weight!”
Now filming has wrapped up, Christian plans to work on a writing project with Georgia Moffett, 32 – the wife of his good friend David Tennant, 46.
He met the former Doctor Who and Broadchurch star on the set of 2009 film St Trinian’s: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold.
David introduced Christian to wife Jennie Fava, 42, and officiated at their wedding in 2013.
Christian was born in Wellington and spent his early years in the Shropshire town. But he spent much of his youth in Basingstoke, going to local comprehensive Brighton Hill Community School before studying drama at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.
One of his earliest TV roles was playing a pants-flashing Blair in the Channel 4’s 2006 drama Tony Blair: Rock Star.
His role in Poldark is one of his highest profile so far, especially with the controversy of Sunday night’s episode.
Mammoth Screen, which makes the BBC1 period drama, said in a statement that it represented the odious character as author Winston Graham penned him. A spokesman said: “In the novels, Winston Graham has created the Reverend Ossie Whitworth as a despicable character who regularly rapes his wife Morwenna.
“We have chosen to depict this element of the novels in series three because to do otherwise would be to minimise the appalling nature of Ossie’s behaviour and the horror of what Morwenna endures.”
The period drama previously sparked complaints to broadcasting watchdog Ofcom over a scene involving Aidan Turner’s character Poldark and his former fiancee Elizabeth, played by Heida Reed.
It showed Reed’s character resisting Poldark before appearing to change her mind, and was criticised for being ambiguous.
The show, a British-American collaboration that began its first series in 2015, has been a run-away success for the BBC and concludes its third season this Sunday.
It’s is the BBC’s second adaptation of of the Poldark novels by Winston Graham, following in the footsteps of the fondly remembered 1970s TV series of the same name.
