I hooked up with co-stars – it’s a fantasy on set so I know why Andrew Buchan couldn’t resist, says Ulrika Jonsson
ANYONE who has watched the gripping BBC drama Better, starring Leila Farzad and Andrew Buchan, will know the chemistry between those two fine actors was undeniable.
The sexual tension was palpable. I was obsessed and binged it in one sitting, greedy mare.
No plot spoilers here, but despite the pair not being romantically linked in the storyline, by Christ, their on-screen bond and attraction runs deep
But news in yesterday’s Sun that Buchan has since left his wife Amy Nuttall to shack up with Farzad makes me think there may actually have been less actual acting on set than I originally credited them for.
Perhaps it all came very naturally to them both.
WHAT is it about being on set? About filming?
About working closely — away from home — on a project with only a small number of people that seems to enable romance to win the day so readily?
Because this isn’t the first time it’s happened in the world of showbiz. And it won’t be the last.
Strange things
Keeley Hawes and Matthew Macfadyen fell for each other on the set of Spooks, and only recently, Rafe Spall left his wife of 12 years, Elize du Toit, after supposedly striking up a romance with his on-screen spouse, Esther Smith.
In 2020 Dominic West and wife Catherine FitzGerald put on a united front for photographers after pictures emerged of the actor passionately kissing younger co-star Lily James on a flight to Rome, where they filmed BBC drama The Pursuit Of Love.
And three years after pictures showed Ewan McGregor kissing his Fargo co-star Mary Elizabeth Winstead in 2017, his 22-year marriage to Eve Mavrakis was over.
I wouldn’t be hypocritical enough to criticise actors who stray, because in fairness, many of us meet people at work.
It just so happens this type of work is more than a little unusual.
You’re not stuck in an office or factory with the same people week in, week out.
When filming, you’re transported away from the domesticity and drudgery of day-to-day life.
It’s an escape from children, responsibilities and the mundane.
You become part of a project with a set group with whom you spend an intense period.
You are not only geographically displaced from routine and normality but psychologically too.
And it can really do strange things to you.
While I was filming Gladiators on location for a month 27 years ago, I fell for someone who, awkwardly and inappropriately, wasn’t my then-husband.
For me, certainly, it came down to escapism. I’d had a chance to get away from everything — husband and young child.
I was free to abandon my domestic responsibilities and simply focus on being me.
As a result of having a toddler, I hadn’t been “me” for a long time
It was like going away on a long working holiday. Albeit, to Birmingham.
Fast forward many years, and I fashioned a relationship with someone who eventually became husband No2 while filming ITV dating show Mr Right.
(Oh, the irony of me trying to set a bloke up with some keen women then walking off set with him myself wasn’t lost on anyone).
Neither of us was attached, so no relationships were harmed in the making of that love affair, but it does go to prove that it actually is probably a common thing.
For me, going on location or on set has always been about being given the opportunity and freedom to truly be myself, something I would struggle to do in the melée of children and a partner at home.
Away from it all, you can be the person you’ve forgotten about and are meant to be.
I have always found it liberating and they have really been the only times in my life when I have been completely capable of shedding the layers of all the other daily roles I was forced to bear, and completely and utterly concentrate on being me.
In the case of actors, of course, it’s also about becoming someone else, often with the spice of being asked to snog, flirt or have a rumble under the covers with their fellow actor.
If that doesn’t light their internal and emotional fire, I don’t know what will. It’s a wonder some are able to resist all that temptation.
Falling for your co-star must be a very real occupational hazard.
It essentially comes down to building connections with people you might not otherwise be around.
It’s as if you’re suspended in a bubble, the outside world ceases to exist and time is suspended.
It’s like some bizarre working holiday in a random parallel universe.
It can often be hard work and very demanding but, as a result, the atmosphere can become intense.
No one in the outside world is privy to the goings-on.
It’s a moment shared by a definitive group of people at the absolute exclusion of others.
No one else will be in on all the jokes, that unique understanding, and, most crucially, the strong bonds that are created.
What happens on set, stays on set.
And it is without doubt these bonds that inevitably come to cross some traditional boundaries.
The atmosphere, the work and the relationships are powerful, profound and feel heightened by the situation.
There may be people who get on your nerves and grind your gears but there will also be flirting, lingering looks and the brief touching of hands which might spark enough electricity to power the entire lighting on set.
But we are prepared to overlook it.
It’s permissible because the circumstances are exceptional.
Except in the case of the talented Andrew Buchan, where there have clearly now been some serious consequences.
The attraction between him and Leila Farzad clearly overspilled, and word is that his wife Amy is heartbroken.
I feel painfully sad for her but if this is a true love story, I can’t deny I find it quite romantic.
BUT it is also one of the main reasons I would never want to be in a relationship with an actor — all that stressing and worrying about them disappearing for months on end on location in a hot and sweaty Mexico with some sexy actress who he might invite into his trailer while I’m at home chewing the arm of the sofa in desperation and paranoia.
Whatever the hard work that is demanded on these shoots, let’s not forget it’s quite the luxury to go away on location and leave the rest of the world behind.
Not everyone gets the opportunity.
The question, I guess, that no one quite knows the answer to, is whether a location relationship will eventually work in the outside world.
Once the filming bubble has deflated, will that bond function in real life? Because being on location couldn’t be further from real life if it tried.
It’s a bit like the couples on Love Island who declare their undying love for each other after three days, only to find that away from the pool and the cocktails, they have nothing in common, and the minute they get back to Blighty, they start arguing about who will empty the dishwasher and take the bins out.
I guess if it’s true love, it’s meant to be, it will go the distance and be worth the sacrifice and heartbreak of others.
But it must be a deeply unsettling time for the person left at home.
Left to pray that there is no magical chemistry between co-stars or crew, and their loved one comes home without having had their head or heart turned after falling for someone else.
And that they are just as willing to empty the dishwasher when they’re back as they were before they left.
