The opening shot of Rivals very much sets the tone for the rest of the series. In the first few seconds, we see a man’s bare bottom as he enthusiastically makes love to an audibly ecstatic women wearing red stilettos in the bathroom of Concorde. At the moment of climax, the plane reaches supersonic speeds, a champagne bottle pops its cork and there are cheers from the other passengers. What else would you expect from Jilly Cooper? Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Ahead of the show airing, Harper’s Bazaar gathered together some of the stars of the hotly anticipated Disney+ series, who are all eager for audiences to see their “provocative, mischievous and sexy” show come to life.
It is Alex Hassell who takes the role of the perpetually naked Rupert Campbell-Black, the show’s sexy and self-assured anti-hero. While Campbell-Black openly revels in and boasts about his debauchery, Hassell, however, is thankfully more modest when compared to his on-screen counterpart. “I haven’t really had a real-life rivalry,” he muses. “I’m not that kind of person. Although I was thinking, on some level, there is a version of myself in my imagination who is more successful, more talented, more attractive – and the idea of this person in my imagination pushes me to continue to try and reach that level of unselfconsciousness.”
If he wasn’t playing the horse-riding cad, Hassell believes he’d be best served playing Maud O’Hara – the steely wife of TV star Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner). It is Victoria Smurfit who gives a rapt performance as Maud. “She’s quite fabulous and says whatever she wants,” he says. “And she rides a camel at one point, so who wouldn’t want to do that?”
Catriona Chandler, who plays Maud’s daughter Caitlin O’Hara, would instead opt for playing Cameron Cook, the beautiful and ferociously talented American TV executive who finds herself prowling around the affections of two powerful men. “She’s a woman in a man’s world,” Chandler says. “She’s so ambitious and fierce. Her outfits are banging.”
Nafessa Williams, who actually plays Cameron, agrees that the TV executive was a coveted role. “I love my character,” she says, laughing. “There are so many layers to her – she’s very bossy, she’s the sexiest character that I’ve played so far, so it’s fun and rebellious.
“I love how she's not the good girl; I love how she plays the game just as good or even better than the men.”
It’s these characters, like Cook, that are undoubtedly part of the appeal of Cooper’s oeuvre of work; while much of the series revolves around Rupert’s escapades, the author's female characters aren’t devoid of depth.
Cooper’s bravery to tackle and discuss subjects that were otherwise considered taboo is somewhat revolutionary for Chandler. “So many women have come up to me and told me stories about reading them underneath the covers at night secretly because they were reading books with themes of sex and power – things that are quite dark,” she says. “But what Jilly does so amazingly well is that she makes these themes so fun and so lighthearted in a way. There’s depth there, but it’s also amusing to read – that takes courage, especially if you’re a female writer in the '80s where none of that stuff was put onto paper.”
As a longtime fan of Cooper, Smurfit agrees. “I loved them from teenage me all the way up to not-teenage me. In her novels – you instantly know who the characters are, you instantly know they’re going to get in trouble, you instantly know they’re going to fail, they’re going to succeed. It’s sexy, it’s funny, it’s human – every character is completely rooted in truth but also lifted into aspirational madness.”
“What I love most about Cooper’s books is the scandal,” Williams agrees. “We all love some tea and a drama to certain extent. They’re sexy, scandalous, also fashionable, too. You can get the vision when reading the book and I hope we are doing the fashion justice.”
Starring in a series beholden to scandalising viewers with its numerous sex scenes could have made Rivals an awkward project to work on. Not so, says Bella Maclean, who plays Taggie O’Hara (and is no stranger to on-screen romping, having starred in Sex Education).
“The majority of the cast is incredibly experienced and had been doing this for quite a while, and I noticed they did not take themselves seriously at all,” she says. “They had a lot of fun and there was a lot of laughter on set, so I felt very lucky to be in such a happy environment every day and it’s possible to have an inordinate amount of fun when you’re working.”
Hassell agrees. “The cast were all really funny, good people. The thing I learnt most was to have a laugh while shooting.
“We ruined countless takes from giggling and that kind of levity made the show so much more fun to shoot but also permeates the show in the way that’s really effective and useful and made my job, which was slightly terrifying at times, much easier.”
Aidan Turner concurs, saying “he’s never had more fun on set” than when filming Rivals. “They’re the most wonderful, gorgeous people ever,” he says. “It’s tiring to hear actors say it’s like a family on set – but it really was.
“It was a wonderful summer. I don’t know exactly what I learned, but I think all of the cast made me a better person.”
Watch our quick-fire interviews with the cast of 'Rivals' in our exclusive video, above.
