{"id":307,"date":"2026-06-01T12:07:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T12:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=307"},"modified":"2026-06-01T12:07:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T12:07:35","slug":"aidan-turner-cant-stop-smoldering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=307","title":{"rendered":"Aidan Turner Can\u2019t Stop Smoldering"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>The Goring Hotel, near Buckingham Palace, is one of the few remaining places in the capital where you can still receive\u2014thank God!\u2014the services of a fleet of uniformed footmen, in spiffy red tailcoats and gold-trimmed waistcoats. There are hedges in the shape of rabbits on the manicured lawn, and occasional visits from a Shetland pony. It is the kind of hotel, one imagines, that the idle aristocrats who populate Christopher Hampton\u2019s 1985 play, \u201cLes Liaisons Dangereuses,\u201d based on the earlier French novel, might have used for illicit affairs, had they stopped over in London. The footmen would surely be discreet.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=305\">This Is What Trumpian Self-Dealing Looks Like<\/a><\/p>\n<p>One recent afternoon, the Irish actor Aidan Turner, who plays the seedy playboy the Vicomte de Valmont in a new production of the show at the National Theatre, settled into an armchair in the hotel\u2019s lounge. On the wall, a pair of merpeople wore nothing but seashells. Turner was dressed less like a French aristocrat and more like an East London barista: white T-shirt, canvas jacket, high-waisted wool trousers. Bypassing a three-course afternoon-tea menu, he ordered a cup of decaf English Breakfast with sugar. He was already jittery. \u201cAfternoon tea would slow me right down, I\u2019m going to be honest,\u201d he said. \u201cI need to be light on my toes.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>This is true. Turner\u2019s Valmont is silver-tongued and fleet-footed, more slippery and charming than previous iterations of the sleazeball by Alan Rickman (the stage) and John Malkovich (the film). Lesley Manville plays the scheming Marquise de Merteuil. \u201cThey\u2019re both wicked, and they get a lot of satisfaction from manipulating people,\u201d Turner said. He wanted to see if Valmont could win the audience over before revealing his true self. \u201cTraditionally, he\u2019s been played in a way where he\u2019s very much\u2014when you lay eyes on him, he\u2019s a predator,\u201d he said. \u201cWhereas, when he\u2019s quite charming, it sort of challenges the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Turner had just finished a junket to promote both the play and the second season of \u201cRivals,\u201d Disney+\u2019s adaptation of the raunchy romance novel by Jilly Cooper, the U.K.\u2019s version of Danielle Steel. Like \u201cLiaisons,\u201d \u201cRivals\u201d is about rich people having sex, though it is set in the Cotswolds in the nineteen-eighties, rather than pre-revolutionary France. Turner\u2019s character, Declan O\u2019Hara, is a righteous Irish journalist, also loquacious, also hot, but disgusted by ostentatious displays of wealth. \u201cHe\u2019s like the negative to Valmont\u2019s photograph,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Turner first discovered Cooper\u2019s novels many years ago in an old girlfriend\u2019s country house. The cover of \u201cRivals\u201d depicts a lipstick-red high heel digging into a man\u2019s hand; its sequel, \u201cRiders,\u201d features a woman\u2019s backside in polo gear. The images stayed with him. \u201cIt\u2019s <em>so<\/em> eighties,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce you see it, you can\u2019t unsee it.\u201d Cooper passed away, at eighty-eight, after the first season, but she was on set for much of the filming. \u201cYou had to get close to Jilly to find out what she was saying,\u201d Turner said. \u201cShe spoke so, so quietly, and then you\u2019d get in there and you would hear the most <em>filthy<\/em> things! And think, Oh, my God, where is this coming from?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=303\">The Strange Emptiness of the Crowded Governor\u2019s Race in California<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He added sugar to his tea. \u201cIt\u2019s never too far from the characters I play,\u201d he sighed. \u201cIt\u2019s always around. <em>Sex<\/em>.\u201d In the U.K., most people know him as Ross Poldark, the often shirtless mine owner in the BBC\u2019s period romance \u201cPoldark.\u201d In 2015, the show was so popular that it was mentioned repeatedly in the House of Commons. (Example: \u201cLike Poldark, the Prime Minister rode into Cornwall\u2014not on a horse but on a bus.\u201d) Does he consider himself a ladies\u2019 man? \u201cJesus,\u201d he said. He\u2019s married, with a toddler. \u201cValmont is probably very aware of how he looks, and plays on that, and whatever. I\u2019ve never felt I\u2019m that person.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>Groomers like Valmont \u201ctend to hide in plain sight,\u201d Turner continued. \u201cIt\u2019s scarier if it\u2019s not, like, an Andrew Tate.\u201d He had watched a recent Netflix documentary about the manosphere. \u201cIt\u2019s so interesting to watch these guys. I mean, there\u2019s a certain amount of charm, I suppose, but they\u2019re so <em>angry<\/em> all the time,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no craic! Like, who are you dating?\u201d He grew up with a different kind of masculine ideal, representing Ireland in ballroom-dance competitions. \u201cWaltz, tango, quickstep, foxtrot,\u201d he said. \u201cSamba, cha-cha, rumba, paso doble, jive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was almost time to go. He had skillfully avoided the biscuits that came with the tea. (Stay light.) Briefly, he mused about the roles he tends to attract. Why so many charmers, devious or otherwise? \u201cI think it\u2019s just my face,\u201d he said. \u201cMy concentration face comes across as a bit smoldery, but I\u2019m not trying to do that. I\u2019m just trying to focus. I think that\u2019s what it is. Somebody goes, Are you smoldering? No, I\u2019m <em>listening.<\/em> Jesus!\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=301\">A Talent for Seeming<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The actor discusses toxic masculinity on the second season of \u201cRivals\u201d and a new adaptation of \u201cLes Liaisons Dangereuses.\u201d Anna Russell writes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-postcard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Aidan Turner Can\u2019t Stop Smoldering - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=307\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Aidan Turner Can\u2019t Stop Smoldering - 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