Richard Madden: ‘I don’t like the look of me in the mirror’
Bodyguard made him a star – but he hasn’t always been comfortable as the lead. He talks about bullies, his inner ‘fat lad’ and new Elton John biopic Rocketman
For some lucky actors, there are moments when their career suddenly shifts into a higher gear. The right part comes along, the world notices, and boom! their whole life is different. This happened to Richard Madden with Bodyguard, in August last year. He played the tight-mouthed, tight-muscled David Budd, personal minder to Keeley Hawes’ home secretary, Julia Montague, in Jed Mercurio’s six-part BBC One thriller, and the country went bananas.
Bodyguard was great TV – gripping, unpredictable, sexy, with a madly OTT finale – but nobody could have predicted the furore it would cause. It was a national event, achieving the BBC’s largest drama audience for a decade. Social media was aflame every Sunday, with much of the heat centred on Madden, his good looks and his stoic “Ma’ams”. There were threads devoted to his eyebrows, as well as other parts of his anatomy. By the final episode, he had been upgraded from “ex-Game Of Thrones guy” (he played Robb Stark for the first three series) to potential James Bond.