 So how would you sum up the show in 20 seconds or less? It starts in Oxford and where it's set now and so it's humans but we suddenly quickly realize that there are also creatures living in the world which are demons, witches and vampires and the story centres pretty much around a witch called Diana Bishop and she suddenly meets a vampire called Matthew Claremont. The relationships and the chemistry between Matthew and Diana are so important to this show and how did you build that chemistry? Well I suppose there's two parts to that. One is that it's inbuilt in the novel which is great but then you have to find two actors that might be able to do it and you have that weird thing where I was sent off, I got given the job which was great, it was very excited and then I got sent on a plane out to Los Angeles. Then you do, it's kind of like speed dating from what I've been with the same girl for 15 years but from what I hear speed dating's like and I sat in a room and there was one person that we really wanted to have the job and that was Theresa, particularly as I saw a film that she'd done with Andrew Garfield on the way out on the plane and I thought who was this girl, she's absolutely amazing, I hadn't seen any of her work before. I mean she started taking the piss at me actually if I'm honest because I happened to be doing a golf swing in the mirror just as she entered she was like what the hell are you doing? I was like busted. So we've just got on really well straight away and I always think well isn't it just about learning your lines but apparently chemistry is something slightly untouchable and I hear we have it so yeah here's hoping that people enjoy the show. How did you bond when the cameras weren't rolling? We swear a lot English and Australian so I mean I suppose there was that too but she also she's had children pretty recently and I've got three and so the minute that they get to each other it's just that oh here's mine, these are my kids and I was like oh here's mine and and she was still breastfeeding and doing all of that stuff at the same time so we were just having a bit of a giggle about you know how when you do that things can change in size so yeah no we got on very well and we're still very good friends after six months of filming together that's good. What's your favorite thing about working with Theresa? She's so positive I think that's you know she's like an earth mother as far as and she's like I mean her husband ended up leaving to go off and do a job which he wasn't meant to be doing but she said of course she should go and do that and so she was working these 14 hour days really hard whilst and she had a nanny during the day but obviously her little ones had to come in and be breastfed at many different times and she was learning all the lines and doing the main part but the minute her day finished she had to go go home and be mum was obviously my kids were back at back at home with their mother and so she was just had so much energy and I think English is slightly more cynical perhaps or maybe it's just me and so she would keep me buoyant and happy and for most of the time and and she's just brilliant actress so all of those things together make it fun to go to work really. It sounds like the cast really got on really well what's your funniest memory from filming? I can't think of anything to my every day which is very there were certain scenes that Theresa because some of this novel is obviously very it's very much sort of fantasy based and some of it I found quite amusing just you know having to meant there was a day when I was filming something about she had to tell me what she saw in a in a in the book of life when she when she took it out with Ashmole 782 and and she goes and there's this amazing drawing of an alchemical child which was a baby which is upside down and I was like and I just started laughing and I found it I actually couldn't laugh I couldn't look at her throughout that scene because I just such a bizarre thing to be talking about and be excited about a baby upside down. How were you with all the magic jargon? I mean luckily for me I didn't have any incantations because that's the witches so I was pretty pleased about that because that does seem like mumbo jumbo some of it but then you actually have to deal with the actual tech I thought you were going to go with the technical difficulties that actually put like portraying the magic on screen so there's various things that are connected to like almost invisible wire which have to be tugged at certain times to make it look like it magic exists they've done really well actually because that's the thing isn't it when you have a fantasy novel it's very easy to write it it's a castle and it has six towers and it's huge and it's everything's vast and then you're like I know but we've only got a budget that's like hmm so it's it's it's quite a it was a very difficult thing to to put to make flesh if you like and I think I think we've done a really good job. The books have such passionate fans I mean have you had any memorable fan experiences yet? There were a bunch actually who who happened to be in and around when we were filming in Oxford because you know you get a lot of visitors from from abroad and from America particularly up there if they aren't actually already enrolled on campus and so we would often get set and there'd be people that would be super passionate and we'd only just started filming really so we sort of go out and speak to the fans when they seem like a really nice bunch because sometimes you never know what kind of fans you're going to get and it's not necessarily it can be a little bit daunting but if you get like big groups of people coming and being like so how's it going you know and it's it felt like it was a bit too early to talk about like when we think it's going okay um but they put a bit you know they've seemed like a pretty erudite intelligent bunch of people so we'll see if we can please them with with the adaptation. Looking back at your past back catalog of movies we love Watchmen I'd love to know if you'd ever be up for doing a sequel. No I don't I don't anything so I just think that they they're doing a they're doing a television series of it now I think that will do it better than again it's that thing of doing a novel versus a film and I always think that I should have been that they should have been an actor who's a little bit older so maybe maybe now I am the right age to play it so maybe maybe I should. Okay so now I have some fan questions that have been tweeted in the first one is what surprised you most about your character? Well I suppose the fact that he's so reserved in general um and he has such a checkered past you know but the fact that he and he's he has he has problems controlling himself he does suffer from this thing called bloodlust which we learn about later um but might as well throw it in now because no one really understands what that means probably but um but the fact that he falls for her so quickly I think considering he's his main thing is to try and understand why creatures are losing all their powers and suddenly this witch comes along and witches and vampires famous and don't get along and that he there's this sense of inevitability um or that that you know for a strong man he seems quite weak in some ways. What's the major difference between creating a TV show versus making a movie? Well this is a TV show obviously um so uh time generally uh and and also the fact that there's a nature of but due to it being adaptation things change like continually throughout when often oftentimes when you do a movie it's fairly set people have been working on it it's two hours you know the the structure doesn't change that much maybe a tweak here or there whereas this was a living breathing thing and Jane Trante is our producer sort of prides herself on that she does not stop and will re-edit and tweak and change lines and blah blah right up until literally the day it goes out so I wouldn't be surprised if yesterday she was tinkering with something because that's that that that there in lies that sort of bigger difference but it's quite nice also when you're doing when you're doing a book it's nice not to have to do it in two hours it's nice to have it unfold like the chapters of the book itself so you have more time on screen so in some ways you can do things and much more subtly. Have you read the books and if so uh we're watching the show be different if you know how the books end? It's funny Jane didn't want us to read the book to start off with and then we just felt a bit naked about it we're like well I need to know the mythology and everything that's going on so we sort of said look we pleased and she was like okay um so read one and I haven't read two or three yet because uh I don't want to ruin the surprise I'm I know that I'm gonna have to read two very soon because we start it again in March. What's your favorite thing about your character and do you have a favorite scene? I think the stag hunting was quite fun so having the possibility of incredible speed and agility as opposed to the actual of doing it which is up on a mountain in you know in the Breckin Beacons and you're and like my my wonderful director at that point was saying uh in the terms that you could possibly run a bit quicker look a bit more agile and you're like well I'm running up a one in two gradient and there's potholes everywhere but I'll give it a go um so yeah we got challenged um but yeah it's nice to have that kind he doesn't fly but he has some pretty good um you know physical strength. How did you prepare for your role? I read the book and I we chatted out but you suppose that in some ways you can't really prepare until you meet the other actor that you're going to spend the rest of your time with so spending really good amounts of time with Theresa and also working with Jane Tranta who does no stone unturned um she's a real inspiration as a producer so you know you do your homework you turn up and do your best like going to church once a week do your best. If you could ask your character one question what would you want to How do you take the left side of a golf course out of your swing?