If truth be told, Green seems slightly haunted by his years in the spotlight and the scrutiny of his personal life that he has had to endure.
“The other day in Newcastle, I was walking along the street and this woman said, ‘You’re a f------ creep’.”
While he doesn’t make clear why she took aim at him thus, it may have had something to do with reports that Green, twice-divorced with an 18-year-old son, started a relationship with a vicar’s wife he met at the gym.
Green says he has been “judged” by the public so often that he now accepts it is just “the industry and the life”. He doesn’t read reviews and doesn’t do Twitter. But the actor admits it is hard to avoid negative press, “because people send me it. Including my mother.”
Green rolls his eyes. I’m loathe to bring up his current relationship status, but infidelity in middle age is central to Age Before Beauty. Betrayal he says, “is shattering to either partner”.
But, he adds, “people drift apart and things change because of circumstance. But that’s not an excuse to behave badly, it never is. Happy people stay together in my philosophy.”
Did he draw on his own experiences to play Teddy ?
He says not, but admits that knowing things are rarely as black and white as they seem helped him to add nuance. Although Teddy emerges as something of a “baddy”, Green’s portrayal is likeable and, even, relatable.
Much like Green himself. In shows like Extreme Fishing and Tales From the Coast, he has proved to be a natural presenter. His enthusiasm is infectious and even those who have no interest in fishing have been won over by his charm.
Nevertheless, his years of catching, killing, cooking and eating a whole encyclopedia’s worth of marine life have attracted criticism.
“I don’t like it when people say I’m cruel. By design we’re meant to eat fish and fish is good for you. Psychiatrists and therapists recommend it for depression, especially the omega-3 oils in mackerel.”
Fishing trips with his son, Taylor, aren’t quite as frequent now that he’s a good-looking 18-year-old with other catch on his mind. However, Green and Age Before Beauty co-star James Murray have bonded over their shared love of fly fishing, taking a trip up to the River Thurso in Scotland.
Green is also close to James Norton, his soon-to-be-departing co-star in Grantchester. Having been something of a housewives’ choice in his day, how does Green feel about the objectification of younger actors such as Norton and Poldark’s Aidan Turner ?
“It’s always been going on,” he says dismissively. “Paul Newman spent lots of time with his cinematographer [looking for the best] light.”
Green is simply happy to grow old gracefully. “I can pay the bills doing what I love, and I’m able to fish; I’ve got a really wonderful life. And if people still see me as a heart-throb, great.”
Age Before Beauty starts on BBC One on July 31 at 9pm
Did you enjoy your newfound friendship with co-star James Murray ?
“The bromance between Jim and I grew as soon as we found out we shared a love for fishing. We talk casting technique, river levels and water quality… we have been fishing whilst we have been on set a few times and we are off to Scotland when this wraps on a fishing trip together.
“He is a bloody good angler and fly fisher, much better than I am. He is also very good company; he’s a gorgeous man. The whole cast have been wonderful and in particular, Polly (Walker). She is effortless in her work, a class act.”
In what ways was playing a character like Teddy to be a new experience ?
‘This character has pushed me outside of my comfort zone, which is a really good thing because you will never learn if you don’t do that. At no time have I played sinister in my life, I am not a sinister person so I have never come close to doing things like Teddy does in this series – he has sown seeds which are going to be so destructive.
“You just have to wait for the explosion of traumatic and collective emotional trauma to happen. That approach to a character who is hell-bent on one singular pursuit, but knowing that pursuit will cause so much emotional carnage, yet his reasons are clear to him, that is completely new to me.
On the surface he is a very likeable man but suddenly he shows you his darkness because what he does, he does with a smile and that is interesting to play.”
Robson Green is currently filming the new season of Grantchester, which is expected to air in early 2019.
ROBSON GREEN HAS ADVICE FOR ACTORS WHO FEEL PRESSURE TO MAINTAIN THEIR LOOKS.
The Grantchester actor will be appearing next in Age Before Beauty.
TV star Robson Green has vowed not to go under-the-knife because he does not want to look as though he has been “shot out of a cannon”.
The Grantchester actor, 53, will soon appear in Age Before Beauty, a BBC1 drama about a family-owned beauty salon.
The new show has been penned by Poldark screenwriter Debbie Horsfield and also stars Sue Johnston, Polly Walker, Lisa Riley and James Murray.
Green told the Press Association: “I’ve got certain friends and I’ve worked with people who look like they’ve been shot out of a cannon.
“I’m like, ‘My goodness, what on earth were you thinking? You looked in the mirror and thought that worked ?
“And I don’t believe that when people go, ‘Oh well, we’re under pressure by society and imagery.’ What a load of old shit.
“I think if you have that low self esteem it’s another type of help you need and it’s not cosmetic.
“That’s my personal opinion. Some of the most beautiful people in the world aren’t cliched in their looks…”
Asked if there was pressure on actors to look good, he said: “Just eat less and move more. Come on it’s not that difficult.
“I’m not going to use cosmetic stuff. I’m going to do it through hard work and blood, sweat and tears… I work hard at it and it’s a very healthy approach … The quick fix is never a solution.”
Age Before Beauty starts on BBC1 on Tuesday, July 31.
Robson Green en famille à Torquay en 1977. De gauche à droite: sa sœur ainée Joanna, son frère cadet David, Robson, une amie de la famille, Helen, et son père, Robson senior.
ROBSON GREEN INTERVIEW: ‘GRANTCHESTER’ STAR ON HIS NEW ROLE IN BBC’S ‘AGE BEFORE BEAUTY’.
Grantchester star Robson Green is back on our screens this summer in a new BBC drama from the writer of Poldark.
Set in a Manchester beauty salon, Age Before Beauty is airing in the UK on Tuesday nights at 9pm on BBC One.
Created by Poldark showrunner Debbie Horsefield, the six-part family saga is described as “an exploration of youth, age, instant gratification and long-term relationships set within the beauty industry.”
Here Robson Green chats about his role in Age Before Beauty…
Tell us about your devious new character !
“On the surface Teddy Roxton is a very good, caring, loving individual who you think has nothing but positive things to say about life, people and relationships – but everything isn’t quite as it seems and underneath there is an undercurrent of something deeply uncomfortable.
“As individuals we all have a side to us where we will do anything for certain emotions we are experiencing, and one of them is love – and love can send you in very strange directions. It can make you feel euphoric one moment and absolutely traumatised the next, it plays with your mind and your heart and to be reckless with people’s hearts is one of the most harmful things to do in life – yet we all have it in us, including Teddy.”
Do you think audiences will empathise with Teddy?
“The way Teddy behaves affects every single relationship in this story on a massive level, which is amazing to play. He is a pathological liar but his actions are routed in truth and circumstance and everything Teddy does in this series stems from an absolute devotion to love.
“What he does is so devious, but you understand why he does it, and there will be moments when you really care for him and even feel sorry for him because we have all experienced similar emotions. I hope the audience will squirm watching Teddy because so many people will identify with these situations.
“This drama asks one very poignant but simple question: do you have to stay young and beautiful if you want to be loved ?
It’s a simple question that deals with growing old and whether holding onto a relationship is harder as you get older. We look at the idea of love and circumstance, the notion that you may be in a relationship but all of your life you have loved someone else, which does happen. Deep down your heart may be somewhere else and that must be very painful.
“That is interesting as an actor and the cause and effect of that is fun to play. Storytelling is everything, and Debbie Horsfield has beautifully structured the storytelling within this drama. Debbie has created endearing characters who I believe audiences will care about and will want to follow through the journeys they embark on. On top of that they sing and dance!”
How did you find filming the musical elements of Age Before Beauty ?
“The great thing is I have sung for most of my life, so when the musical director and choreographer came it felt great to be able to exercise those muscles. It was a real joy. I love singing and recording and we got to record in the Abbey Road studios, which is incredible.
The first big musical number we did was so colourful and joyous and to see the craft at the top of its game in the professional dancers we had on set was wonderful.”
ROBSON GREEN INTERVIEW: ‘ACTORS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN OBJECTIFIED’
Robson Green stars in a new BBC One series, Age Before Beauty.
Recently Robson Green was driving through Gosforth, not far from his Northumberland home, when he saw an advertisement for a retirement home. It said: “Flats for the elderly, 55 and over. Warden included.”
Suddenly, he imagined himself pulling a cord and a voice asking, “Are you all right Mr Green? Have you had a fall?”
With his 55th birthday next year, the actor and “extreme fisherman” (trademark, The Discovery Channel) is starting to worry about mortality.
“My mum’s 83 and lives in a place that’s got the cord. But I don’t want a place with the cord!” he says. And it’s not just the birthday that has made him pause for thought.
Green also had surgery last year for a prolapsed disc, an injury he admits was caused by a five-days-a-week gym regime and an attempt to run 1.5 miles in nine minutes.
“I had this mantra that if you can get under 11 minutes you can join the army,” he says, mocking his hubris. Of course, anyone who has watched Green catching nurse sharks in Senegal or stingray in the Azores knows that the star is in exceptional shape for his age.
Since a producer first asked him more than 10 years ago if he’d be interested in travelling the world in search of incredible fish for a new TV show (one of Green’s less taxing career decisions), the actor has been to 132 countries and found himself in all manner of dangerous situations, from freezing temperatures in Siberia to a hurricane at sea in Okinawa.
The back injury has slowed down filming, but he still relishes the opportunity to embrace the “hunter-gatherer thing”.
The rest of the time, of course, Green is making TV dramas and, over the years, has starred in some of our most popular series, from Soldier Soldier and Wire in the Blood to Grantchester.
As chance would have it, his latest drama is all about ageing and society’s preoccupation with stopping it.
Age Before Beauty, a new six-part series for BBC One, tells the story of Bel (Polly Walker), an empty-nester who returns to revitalise her family’s struggling beauty salon while also dealing with problems in her marriage.
Green plays Teddy, the husband of Bel’s blonde, Botox-needle-wielding sister.
The drama has been written by Poldark creator Debbie Horsfield and there are superficial similarities with her early Noughties show Cutting It, which was set in a hair salon.
But the themes of Age Before Beauty – jealousy, infidelity, body image and self-obsession – are significantly darker.
Does Green, who has some lines on his forehead, condone plastic surgery ?
“Some men that shall remain nameless on popular shows on a Saturday night, they look like bits are going to start dropping off,” he says. “Really? You’re fooling no one.”
Simon Cowell was the Svengali behind Green’s successful music career (as one half of Robson and Jerome in the Nineties). Might he have had “work” done? He looks at me in joke-disbelief. “Really? You surprise me. It doesn’t take an Oxford don to work it out.”
Green stayed close to his roots, living in Northumberland. That combination of pit village boy and showbusiness veteran means opinions are delivered with an entertaining forthrightness (although, Cowell, in fact, has been quite open about his cosmetic procedures, including Botox and a non‑surgical facelift).
That Green had the confidence to leave the shipyard and become an actor he credits to his parents. His late father was a miner and ballroom dancer, his mother a cleaner and shop worker.
But although the money that came in from 1995’s Unchained Melody set him and Jerome Flynn up financially (Flynn is now best known as Bronn in Game of Thrones; the pair are still close friends), he describes the experience as: “My personal Vietnam. It wasn’t the greatest of artistic choices.”
He looks as fit as a butcher’s dog but Robson Green is feeling his age. Fifty-three, since you ask.
During the PR rounds to chat about his role in new BBC1 drama Age Before Beauty, he asks the PR to leave him time for a good stretch between interviews.
‘In your mind you think you’re 18 and you can run around and do all the stuff you used to,’ he says, ruefully. But just as you think he’s setting you up for a horror story, he turns it humorously on its head.
Having been in what he reckons was the shape of his life in order to keep up with co-stars near half his age in action-packed series Strike Back, he came crashing down to earth not long after filming ended in 2015.
‘I was in the gym, pushing for a PB on the lat pulldown machine [which targets the upper back]. I didn’t really feel too much at the time, just that I’d pushed it a bit hard.
Afterwards I got all togged up in my fancy dress suit because I was taking my uncle to Royal Ascot, as we love to go to the racing. Then I bent down to pick up my wallet and bang ! My back popped and I passed out, can’t remember a thing.’
It turned out he had a prolapsed disc. ‘I woke up in A&E, [accident & emergency department]’ he says. ‘And I thought I was in heaven. There was this really attractive Aussie nurse leaning over me and I thought she smelt really nice until I realised I was smelling my own vomit.
But I still thought I was in heaven until…’ — he puts on an impressive Australian accent — ‘she whispers to me, “Robson, I just have to ask you… have you s*** your pants ?” That’s when I knew I wasn’t in heaven… and not 18 any more !’
It says much about his positive approach to life that he’s turned a tough 18 months of rehab into a funny story.
And now he’s bouncing back in Age Before Beauty, written by Debbie Horsfield, the screenwriter behind smash-hit Poldark, which tackles the current obsession with chasing youth head on, charting the lengths people will go to keep the illusion of staying young and beautiful. Lengths that stretch from plastic surgery and liposuction to ill-advised flings.
Which brings us to glam-heavy reality TV shows such as Love Island, a subject that makes the Geordie’s smile slip. ‘I don’t really watch that much of them but you can’t avoid them, can you ?
The kinds of people in them are so fit and attractive. What terrifies me is that people follow them and they are seen as role models when the situations that they are in, I think, makes them unstable.’
It might seem a bit of a leap from reality dating show to a drama about characters pushing 50 — with midlife crisis looming — but Age Before Beauty catches the narcissistic wave as its characters dabble with playing the adulterous field.
Twice-divorced Green plays Teddy, an apparently happily married man who harbours hidden desires that lead him to play dangerous games with his nearest and dearest.
‘Debbie Horsfield told me how she got the idea from a story about how a man had married his wife in order to be close to her sister, who was the woman he really loved. I thought “that sounds a bit far-fetched”, but it really happened.’
Green is a man much in demand. Aside from Age Before Beauty he’s soon to return in ITV hit Grantchester while his career post-‘And Jerome’ has seen him indulge his love of extreme swimming and his beloved angling as a documentary presenter.
His adventures have furnished him with a font of stories and he recalls a night in a Borneo long hut for a travel film where he found himself sleeping with 20 families and their children.
‘I thought “I’m not going to get a wink of sleep here” — but you could have heard a pin drop. There was a sense of belonging, of knowing who you are. I feel privileged. I’ve got my mum and dad to thank for my own sense of place, of knowing who I am.’
Age Before Beauty is on BBC1, Tuesdays, 9pm.
