Poldark star Aidan Turner gets shirty over topless fuss

AIDAN TURNER blames himself for the frenzy he caused when whipping off his shirt last year.

The scene in which he indulges in a spot of topless scything was voted best telly moment of the year and helped Poldark pull in more than nine million viewers.

But Turner, who returns as Cornish mine-owner Ross Poldark on Sunday, reveals: “It was never in the script that he takes his top off — it just made sense.

“That’s the worst thing — it was my idea!

“It was probably a huge mistake, but Poldark’s out in the fields, it’s a really hot day, there’s a lot of work and it wouldn’t have made sense with a top on.

“It was never meant to be sexually provocative.

“So when the show came out and it all kicked off, I was a bit surprised, but it kind of put the show on the map.”

Turner enhanced his heart-throb status at Christmas in the BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None when, at one point, he appeared in just a towel.

But he says in his soft Irish accent: “Poldark is one of those shows that people my age might say: ‘Oh, yeah, my mum loves the show,’ or ‘My auntie loves the show, but I’ve never seen it.’

“But then they seem to know quite a bit about it, all the same, and they’re the one who’s recognised me!’”

He’s also one of those actors who hates watching himself, and won’t even read about the hype surrounding the show.

“When a show that I’m in goes out, I don’t really watch it,” he reveals.

“I don’t tune into any of the press,” he says.

“My friends and family even know not to send me stuff.

“Mind you, they’ll send me funny stuff now and again like: ‘Poldark’s hair has its own Twitter account. Check out what your hair is saying this week!’”

Er, head hair or chest hair, considering they’re equally hirsute?

“Probably both,” Aidan says. “I mean, I was talking about the head hair, but the chest hair had something else going on over the summer, so God knows these days!”

The first series ended — fittingly, considering the Cornish landscape — on a classic cliffhanger with Poldark arrested for murder.

He’s now on trial for his life, and that isn’t the only fight he faces, as it looks like there’ll be a tug of love between his wife Demelza and his former sweetheart Elizabeth, who married his cousin when he was fighting in America.

“Does he still fancy Elizabeth, is he still in love with her? Does he feel betrayed? Was it her fault?

“All these questions are still there in the second series,” he nods.

Well, the question of whether Elizabeth still fancies him has already been answered as Icelandic actress Heida Reed, who plays her, simply says: “Who doesn’t?”

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