NEW YORK, Nov. 11 (UPI) — The Hobbit and Poldark icon Aidan Turner acknowledges his Rivals TV producer Declan O’Hara is too late in embracing work-life balance just as his wife Maud (Victoria Smurfit) begins an affair with Declan’s nemesis Tony, Lord Baddingham (David Tennant).
Well, well, well. Look who’s back. https://t.co/JGgIQc0R9V— Hulu (@hulu) November 11, 2026
“He’s floored. It’s a really difficult situation he’s in,” Turner, 43, told UPI in a Zoom interview, ahead of Wednesday’s Season 2 mid-season premiere of the Disney+ and Hulu dramedy, which takes place in the Cotswalds in 1987.
“In the past, he’s been able to forgive the infidelities, or, they had their own laws and rules around affairs that they managed to govern themselves,” Turner said.
“But this seemed to break all the rules, I think, and he’s truly shocked by it. It feels like he doesn’t know whether there’s a way back now, which is something he’s never felt before. So, it’s a strange, dark time for him.”
Ballykissangel and Once Upon a Time alum Smurfit, 52, not only gets to play myriad emotional notes as Maud this season, she also gets to play several different characters in TV productions that Tony produces.
“I am an aging actress, playing an aging actress, so it’s not the biggest stretch,” Smurfit quipped.
“You are playing all the levels of crazy,” she added. “You could lose your mind, but it’s stupid amounts fun, to be honest with you, even the most traumatic, exhausting bits and pieces are so satisfying. At the end of your day you go home and go, ‘We just went for it.'”
Further complicating Maud’s relationship with Tony are the facts that his kindly wife Monica (Claire Rushbrook) died in a car accident while rushing over to Declan’s house to tell him about the affair AND Sarah Stratton (Emily Atack), a married TV personality at Tony’s TV station, is pregnant with his child.
The Inbetweeners actress Atack, 36, said Sarah is lucky to have her former lover Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) take care of her at his palatial estate while she sorts out the whole debacle.
“It was a really unlikely, lovely thing when I read the script and saw that Sarah and Rupert strike up this friendship,” she said.
“It just shows you can have a sexual relationship and then move on and be friends and kind of put all that stuff in the past because I think they’ve known each other for a long time and even though he didn’t treat her the best, they were friends with benefits,” Atack added.
“It wasn’t ever going to be forever, but he’s sticking around for the friendship and I think that’s nice. He’s there for her at a time where she even says, ‘I haven’t got many friends.’ And he takes her in with no judgment.”
Even though Tony has pushed Sarah off the air, her husband Paul (Rufus Jones), who knows how awful Tony is but likes his job, stays in Tony’s employ.
“We get a peak behind the curtain at the Strattons a bit more and their tumultuous relationship because I think, initially, she’s quite put out by the fact that Paul is not messing around this time. He’s kicked her out,” Atack said.
“Her pouting and fluttering eyelashes haven’t worked this time and I think she’s a bit like, ‘Oh, well, screw you,” she added.
“Without giving too much away, I think the fact that he has gone to work for Tony, that really does kind of bring her to start making irrational, quick decisions. We all know it’s Tony’s baby. Now, Paul doesn’t know yet, and yes, there’s a situation there that occurs where everything comes to a head.”
The screen adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s novels has already been renewed for a third season.
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