His shirtless scenes in BBC One’s Poldark His success made him a celebrity and gave rise to some of the greatest moments in television history.
Aidan Turner claims that the photo of him naked and bare-chested with a scythe was not intended to be publicized.
He said that he couldn’t see the picture without seeing Jacquie Fowler, the makeup and hair designer who appeared in the original behind the scenes photo.
Fowler was caught covering up Turner’s tattoo while on holiday in Tenerife years ago. The image was then Photoshopped.
“The first thing I think of when I see the photograph is that they airbrushed out the makeup artist who was covering a tattoo,” Turner told Radio Times. “I always think of Jacquie Fowler and how she didn’t make that photograph. She was right there, painting out a tattoo.”
Turner claimed that he didn’t feel objectified by the images of him as Ross Poldark, despite the debate surrounding the emphasis on his topless bodies.
“Was it safer to make a big deal of this photograph because it was a young man? What if the photograph was of a young female? Would the media have handled it the same way? I don’t know. It could be. But I didn’t feel objectified,” he said.
Turner stated that it was logical for him to stay in good shape for the series, which ran five seasons between 2015-2019.
“I figured in my preparation that, given Ross Poldark was a very active guy, and the sort of diet he’d be on, it just felt right to get myself into that. He’s a farmer, he’s working, he’s riding a horse all the time, he’s a soldier,” he told the magazine.
This period drama was a huge success BBC Achieved the highest audience share in 10 years.
Turner will star in the ITV thriller The Suspect, in which he plays a clinical psychologist, Joe O’Loughlin, who has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
The series, which begins next Monday, is adapted from Michael Robotham’s novel and comes from the producers of Line of Duty.
