Actor Richard Madden was ‘fat and shy’ at school, but now is a sex symbol and worries being ‘that hunky thing’ will harm his serious acting
HE is the smouldering hunk stealing every scene in the BBC’s new action-packed, bullet-strewn drama of the moment.
And Bodyguard star Richard Madden was even mobbed by celebrity fans backstage at this week’s GQ Awards.
Despite exuding a gravel-voiced intensity and boasting cheekbones that could kill at 20 paces, the 32-year-old is a reluctant pin-up. He still carries the emotional scars of being labelled the “fat kid” at school.
Richard’s natural charm with the ladies mirrors that of his Bodyguard character David Budd, a Met protection officer who falls into bed with Home Secretary Julia Montague, played by Keeley Hawes.
He has been linked with Doctor Who star Jenna Coleman, 32, and model Suki Waterhouse, 26, as well as TV presenters Laura Whitmore, 33, and Caroline Flack, 38.
Those relationships all fizzled out and Richard is now said to be dating Nocturnal Animals actress Ellie Bamber, 21, though he is reluctant to be drawn on the subject. “I am sleeping with someone,” he says coyly. “I am very happy with someone. There are pictures of it on the internet.”
Richard has battled self-doubt all his life, striving to build a more glamorous life away from his home town of Glasgow. While Twitter explodes with viewers drooling over Richard’s nude scenes, the actor remains sceptical.
He told one interviewer: “If I believe someone going, ‘Oh God, he’s hot,’ I’ll also have to believe the person that goes, ‘He’s got pumpkin teeth’.”
While his current pals on the London party scene come mostly from well-to-do backgrounds, Richard went to school at a rough comprehensive in rundown Paisley. There, Richard struggled to fit in.
“I was fat and shy,” he recalls. “Crushingly shy, going to what was a fairly tough high school. Aggressive, masculine. So I thought the best thing to do would be an actor! Not go and play football or get good at boxing. I’ll go and be an actor!
“I was a 38in waist when I was 12. I didn’t wear denim until I was 19 because denim is hard to take up. My mum couldn’t take my jeans up.”
Perhaps it was the hunk’s body hang-ups that made him shun the throng of beauties at this week’s GQ Men of the Year Awards.
Looking suave in a Versace suit, a bow tie and Louis Vuitton shoes, he was pictured hanging off the arms of fashion designer Donatella Versace, 63, and theatre actor Luke Evans, 39.
Richard says: “You chat to a girl at a bar, have a couple of drinks and ‘Shy Richard’ is slowly going, ‘This is going well’. And then it’s, ‘My boyfriend’s a big fan, can I get a picture?’
And you go, ‘F***!’ You think they think you’re hot but it’s because you’re on telly.”
Some months ago, he even bowled up to a Grazia journalist at a party and demanded to know why he was not featured in the magazine’s regular Chart Of Lust, listing the most desirable male celebrities of the moment.
“It does my frail ego good,” he joked. “I’m just trying to work my way up the chart.”
His insecurities don’t stop Richard posting revealing images of himself online. He has 1.3million followers on Instagram and got more than 300,000 likes by sharing a picture of himself “wild swimming” in Devon.
This week he got fans hot under the collar by baring his bottom in the raciest episode yet of Bodyguard, which pulled in more than six million viewers. But Richard fears his sex appeal could HINDER his career.
“I worry sometimes about it affecting my job,” he admits. “If people go, ‘Oh, he’s that hunky thing’, it undermines that actually I’m an actor and I’m trying really hard to be good at it.”
Even so, Richard will get his kit off again to film Rocketman, in which he plays John Reid, Elton John’s long-term manager and lover. Richard said: “Between filming, I eat pizza, drink, don’t work out, get fat. Then it’s six weeks until you have to be naked again — if you’re lucky. I have ten days until I take my clothes off again this time.”
Playing the Rocket Man singer himself is Taron Egerton — also a straight actor in a gay role. Richard says: “I think we’re f***ed if we start going down the route of, ‘You can only play a gay part if you’re a gay actor’.
“Diversity, equality and pay — of course we need to make sure of all that. But at the same time I read reports that so-and-so has pulled out of this role because they’re not transgender and you go, ‘Yeah but they’re a f***ing actor and they’re probably really f***ing good in the part and maybe that’s part of the reason why that film is getting made’.”
Richard is no stranger to gritty storylines and controversial topics. He got his first shot at the limelight aged 13 in an adaptation of Iain Banks’ novel Complicity. He recalls: “My first scene saw me getting raped by a big, 50-year-old ginger Scotsman.”
Growing up in a working-class family, Richard had no showbiz contacts to call on. His mum Pat was a classroom assistant and his dad, Richard Snr, a fireman. After a spell with Paisley Art Centre’s youth theatre programme, he “dodged” a couple years of school, acting in the CBBC series Barmy Aunt Boomerang.
He says: “So I was like, ‘I’m going to be acting and not go to school. And get paid.’ ”
When the show ended, he crashed back to reality.
“Life got a bit s**t,” Richard recalled. “The show ends and you go back to class and you’re all at sea and there’s hatefulness from your peers because you’re now the guy from the telly.”
It didn’t last long. Aged 17, he applied to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama.
Richard said: “I wasn’t allowed to apply for drama school unless I applied for a ‘real’ course as well, which was computer science.
“I didn’t know what it was, had no interest. Luckily, the day before my first exams, I received a letter saying, ‘You’ve got into drama school’. So I went to my exams and just wrote my name.
“For the first time, I was surrounded by people my age who loved this acting thing and it was acceptable.”
He played singer Kirk Brandon in BBC’s 2010 Boy George biopic Worried About The Boy before finding real fame as Robb Stark in the global smash Game Of Thrones. In 2015 he starred as Prince Charming in Disney’s Cinderella alongside Lily James, 29.
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Now, he is the tough bodyguard for a power-hungry Home Secretary. And while he enjoyed a series of steamy screen trysts with co-star Keeley, off-screen the pair are like “two kids”.
On Monday, they shared a snap on Instagram of a blood-streaked scene following a terror attack.
Its aftermath will be depicted in tomorrow’s episode. He wrote: “Behind the scenes with the outstandingly talented Keeley Hawes, who kept me smiling even through the toughest of days!”
As star of the year’s most-watched drama, Richard now has plenty to smile about. And the ultimate cherry on the cake? He has atlast made Grazia’s Chart Of Lust.