A
REAL-LIFE Irish Robin Hood will soon set television screens alight
across Britain.
The star
of TV’s new Robin Hood series has admitted robbing the rich
to give to the poor off screen as well as on.
But
Dublin-born Jonas Armstrong admits he was a very merry man when he
stole a bicycle for a penniless pal after a night on the tiles.
He said:
“I was coming home from the pub and I nicked a bike from a
posh garden and gave it away to my poor, drunken mate.”
Jonas, aged 25, said that he
has little else in common with Robin. “Apart from being a dab
hand with the sword, I’ve only been to Nottingham once.
“And
the closest I’ve come to a forest was when I went to the
Glastonbury Festival.”
Jonas
first hit our screens in 2004 in Channel 4’s hit drama
Teachers.
Now he is
tipped for superstardom in Robin Hood — the BBC’s
multi-million-pound 13-part drama which begins on Saturday night.
The series
— which also stars Keith Allen as the dastardly Sheriff of
Nottingham — took six months to film in Budapest, which is
the traditional home of Robin Hood.
But the
drama nearly didn’t make it to our screens when the master
tapes were stolen last month.
They were
found dumped in bushes in the Hungarian capital nine days ago after the
crew had already re-shot hours of footage.
Despite
being a relatively unknown actor to date, the Irishman is not at all
fazed by the prospect of fame that the Robin Hood series is set to
bring.
He said:
“We’ll just have to see. The cast keep on taking
the mickey saying it’s all going to change. But
we’ll see.”
He also
admits that filming has been more draining than he ever imagined.
He said:
“There isn’t much time for socialising. If
you’ve had a hard day in the forest all you want to do is to
chill out. You think, ‘I’m 25, of course I can work
six months solid without a break’.
“But
I had to take a couple of days off. And I’ve learned that, as
tempting as it is to stay up until stupid o’clock with your
cast mates, it will catch up with you.”
