Luther Ford is sitting in the cafe at the BFI on the South Bank in London when Big Issue arrives. He’s casually dressed in baggy t-shirt and shorts, baseball cap, trainers. But he has a bag full of clothes by his feet – “many layers of Miu Miu” – that he’ll be wearing on the red carpet within minutes of our interview concluding.
It’s the world premiere of King & Conqueror, the new BBC One series produced by and starring James Norton and Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau – who play Harold of Wessex and William the Conqueror in the years leading up to the Battle of Hastings. The origin story for one of the most famous and influential battles in British history is little known. At school we learn the dates and the key players, and might see pictures of the Bayeux Tapestry, but little beyond that.
“I didn’t know anything else,” says Ford. He certainly hadn’t heard of Tostig, Harold’s little brother, who he plays in the eight-part series.
“It’s all about the dynamics of families and relationships and struggles for power – and what that pursuit of power does to people and the carnage and chaos that ensues from it. We play out the same things on repeat. We’re dealing with the same things now.”
It’s a wonder it’s taken so long for TV to fill the gap in our collective knowledge about 1066. But King & Conqueror, filmed entirely in Iceland, is as smart as it is epic, as witty as it is educational.
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And it’s as well acted as you’d expect from a cast including Eddie Marsan as King Edward the Confessor and Juliet Stevenson as Lady Emma (Edward’s mother, the power behind the throne), as well as Emily Beecham and Clémence Poésy as Edith and Matilda, the wives of the two main protagonists, whose stories rarely make the history books.
“It’s such a strong cast. Tostig initially looks up to Harold, and I definitely felt that with James. I was a little intimated because he’s producing the show and it’s so much responsibility, so I didn’t want to take up too much of his time,” says Ford.
“But he’s such an interesting and interested person and he knew we needed to form this tight relationship off screen for it to work on screen.”
Iceland was, Ford says, a blast. The landscape, the food, the thermal pools, the whole cast and crew on this adventure together.
“It’s like another planet. Of anywhere in the world I’ve been, it felt the most alien. There are fields of solidified magma – and on the magma grows luminous green moss.
“James and I would go to this portable sauna in a caravan for guided sauna sessions, cover ourselves in seaweed, then go into the sea at 15-minute intervals. He’s a big swimmer. The man is so full of energy. It’s infectious. He was great at bringing everyone together.
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“We would all go out every weekend on hikes or to saunas. It was very wholesome. But you become very involved in each other’s lives and it’s very intense. That’s what’s bizarre about acting.”
Ford, 25, is still wide-eyed at the adventures he gets to go on these days. He’s becoming accustomed to the actor’s life, but it was never the plan. He was at film school in Bournemouth hoping for a career behind the camera when he was sent an advert for the open casting to play Prince Harry in The Crown.
“I came into acting in such an extreme and lucky way,” he says now.
“I was sent this advert for an open casting on Instagram. And I don’t even know why I did it. I think I thought it would be a funny story to say that I auditioned for it.”
The abrupt career change soon saw Ford make a big impression in a small role as a psychopath in Black Doves opposite Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw, and he’s completed a major (but secret) role in series two of Apple TV’s police corruption drama Criminal Record alongside Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi.
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“The Crown was such a big production, it was so overwhelming and for that to be my first experience on set was just mad,” he says. “But I’m starting to feel relaxed and in control and learning not to be passive. In acting, a lot of the time you’re told where to stand and what to say – and if you don’t have the confidence, it can be hard to make it creative. But King & Conqueror was a big part of that learning curve. I’m getting used to it and hopefully getting better.”
With his bowl cut as Tostig in King & Conqueror. Image :BBC / CBS Studios
For Ford, the battle scenes took him back to the camcorder films he’d make with his friend, choreographing fight scenes around his childhood home.
“I wasn’t really allowed to watch films or television. I didn’t have any access to pop culture. It’s why I started making films myself,” he says.
“So it does take me back. Because you’re literally dressing up and pretending. It’s very childlike. Those battle scenes are very immersive. And I’m fighting all the time in this – I was trained to ride Icelandic horses, which are a very specific breed. Apparently, they’re the original horse. That’s what Icelandic people claim. They’re very passionate about their horses.
“When it’s raining and muddy and you’ve got eight layers of leather and chainmail, with blood and smoke and loads of men shouting, it’s a tiny insight into what it might have been like. You feel the adrenaline.”
Horseplay and history lessons – anything else to convince us to watch King & Conqueror, Luther? He laughs. “I’ve also got this very prominent bowl cut that I think people are going to really want to see.”
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King & Conqueror is on BBC One on Sunday nights and available on iPlayer.
