He’s been in work since leaving drama school a decade ago but Callum Woodhouse has had enough of ‘posh’ – and is ready to play a villain
There are no smiles from Callum in his new role a bad guy, in 5’s The Fortune(Image: Lonesome Pine Productions
Channel 5)
He’s known for his roles as witty and warm-hearted Leslie Durrell in The Durrells and happy-go-lucky Tristan Farnham in All Creatures Great and Small.
But actor Callum Woodhouse is now delighted to have landed a “wildly different” role in new psychological drama The Fortune, in which he can “show a bit of versatility” as a baddie for the first time.
Callum, 32, told the Mirror: “The Durrells and All Creatures are two shows I am incredibly proud of and two characters I am incredibly proud of – but there is not much villainy, and in both I am playing posh characters.”
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Having grown-up in Stockton-on-Tees, Co Durham, he relished the chance to use his own voice to play dark and brooding Anthony Worrall. “In The Fortune, I’m speaking in my own northern accent for the first time, and I am essentially playing a villain,” he explained, adding that playing Tristan had become “a little routine” after doing it for so long.
“I’ve done seven years as Tristan and you find the character again immediately. Whereas coming up with Anthony, a nasty character from the north, I almost had to re-learn how to act in my own accent. Getting to flex those nasty muscles for acting, which I haven’t really done since drama school – it was a lot of fun playing someone so wildly different.”
Callum, whose dad was boss of an oil firm and mother a nurse, went to Stockton Sixth Form before completing a three-year drama course at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He landed the role in ITV’s The Durrells, in which Keeley Hawes played his mother, before he graduated in 2015. “It was a lovely feeling to be leaving knowing this amazing job was there,” he said afterwards. Believing acting to be a hard world to break into, his parents had encouraged him to keep his options open. “It was a bit of a losing battle, though,” he once admitted. “I’ve really honestly never had a Plan B. They have always wanted me to have as many ‘strings to my bow’ just in case it didn’t work out – but it was all or nothing, so thank God it’s worked out so far.”
The Fortune, expected to start on 5 next month, boasts a wealth of top talent including Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson and Harry Potter’s Matthew Lewis – who has also appeared in All Creatures Great and Small. They play a couple, Amanda and Jimmy, whose world is blown apart when she inherits a fortune from a man she’s neither met nor heard of before. The gripping series, due to air this summer, explores the notion of a person’s past not being what they think it is.
New Tricks favourite Denis Lawson plays Martin Worrall, the head of a family which is bound in past secrets – and Callum is his son, Anthony, often to be seen clutching a rifle (not unlike Leslie Durrell). Amanda’s life starts to disintegrate as she becomes embroiled in the world of the Worrall Family.
Other cast include The Thick of It’s Rebecca Front as Martin’s wife Fiona, Wild at Heart’s Stephen Hopkinson as farm worker Boots Maddison and Upstart Crow’s Paula Wilcox as Amanda’s mother Linda.
After playing Leslie Durrell for four series, it ended up being a role Callum found “quite upsetting” because, in real life, Lesie never achieved the success of his siblings. “It’s quite upsetting, because I grew really attached to Leslie, and I wanted him to succeed, and I wanted him to have good things happen to him.”
But he didn’t have the same problem as cheerful vet Tristan. “He always ended up managing to turn a negative into a positive – he was just so perpetually upbeat and happy. It was a very uplifting experience to play Tristan.”
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