‘Rivals’: David Tennant Explains Why Tony & Maud’s Major Development Surprises Him (VIDEO)

Rivals, in its second season, takes something that’s a major reveal on the pages of Jilly Cooper‘s novel and shows it right on the screen. And let’s just say that if it’s just a move on Tony’s (David Tennant) part to hurt Declan (Aidan turner), well, he’s looking in the right place. TV Insider spoke with Tennant about just that. Warning: Spoilers for Rivals Season 2 Episode 4 ahead!

Maud (Victoria Smurfit) does take the part in Corinium’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to Tony’s smug delight and Declan’s frustration. Declan thinks it’s a move to sabotage Venturer, also bidding for the same franchise as Corinium, whether she excels or not. When Maud asks Tony about just that, he admits that watching Declan squirm is the cherry on top but insists he’s hired her as part of a good decision as a businessman, that she’s the right person for the job. He also says he wants her to audition to lead the next series of Four Men Went to Mow, to prove how confident he is in her.

Both Declan — there off Cameron’s (Nafessa Williams) insistence they need to attend to show they don’t care about their rival’s tactics — and Tony are mesmerized by Maud’s performance. After, Declan praises her and asks her to come with him to Ireland for his Yeats documentary. But she refuses to sit around and watch him work again. Rather than go home to Declan that night, she ends it in Tony’s office, and what follows is a seduction. There are lots of things he wants to see her do, Tony says, to which Maud tells him she dreamed of doing some very bad things in front of him before unbuttoning her shirt and throwing her underwear at him.

Yes, Rivals shows Tony and Maud’s affair, rather than just tells it, and it’s oh so delicious. This is what makes the show so juicy, dramatic, and absolutely brilliant. The relationships are so messy (and at times toxic) but we can’t help but want more.

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But how much is Tony’s pursuit of Maud about hurting Declan — he focused on Rupert (Alex Hasell), then, at the end of Episode 3, was turning to the others of Venturer in Declan, Cameron, and Freddie (Danny Dyer) — and how much is it about what he wants for himself, given his reaction to her performance?

“I think it’s both,” David Tennant tells TV Insider in the video interview above. “And I think the latter takes him by surprise. I think he sets out opportunistically to grab her because she’s a talent and because he knows how damaging that will be to Declan and how problematic that is for Venturer. And then I think he finds Maud, who I think he’s always rather dismissed previously, fascinating and compelling and I think he smells a kindred spirit actually. It becomes something that he wasn’t anticipating, what happens between them, and I think he slightly loses control over it. I think it starts to mean more to him than it should or can really. And we will see where that leads.”

Executive producer Alexander Lamb told us that Tony “finds out where Declan’s weaknesses are,” with his fellow EP, Dominic Treadwell-Collins adding, “Declan and Tony is going to be the most devastating and if you’ve read the book, we’ve taken something that happens in the book that is a reveal at the end and decided to play it up front. So we want the audience to go on the journey of Tony’s destruction of Declan and looking at his marriage.” That’s referring to Tony and Maud’s affair.

As Smurfit said, “Maud’s like a spider in a web except she doesn’t realize she’s the fly. And I think she’s really taken by Tony’s offer, his attention, his power, his success, and she has to struggle with the idea of working for her husband’s mortal enemy, but she also has to stand her own ground and choose her own path and work. She’s now a working actress and a job’s a job. So there’s all of that going on. I think she rolls with the punches. Sometimes she makes decisions on instincts that are good. Sometimes she makes decisions that aren’t and that’s the mad rollercoaster of Rivals.”

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Elsewhere in Episode 4, upon hearing that Freddie stayed home and didn’t attend the Shakespeare production, Lizzie (Katherine Parkinson) goes to see him. They’re having sex in his pool when his daughter Sharon (Georgia Mack) comes home, upset. She doesn’t see Lizzie, who hides as Freddie comforts his daughter. Lizzie then returns to Corinium and finds her husband, James (Oliver Chris), unconscious in a studio after tripping while waiting for another woman. Later, Lizzie tells Freddie they can’t keep doing what they are because too many people will get hurt. But they’re lucky to have had it even for an instant. With that, they say goodbye. (And this is why we can’t help but be rooting for infidelity in this case. Theirs is the sweetest romance.) But are they thinking that’s it?

“We’re going into the morally of it all,” says Dyer. “What makes it so interesting to me was that it’s two people that clearly should be together. They love each other. They just met at the wrong time in their lives. But they don’t want to hurt people.”

Parkinson notes there are two issues at play for her character: realizing she needs to leave James and that she’s in love with Freddie but there’s his marriage to take into account as well. “That’s what she questions around that episode because she’s completely in love with him, but she sees this vulnerable teenage girl and hears her talking about things and I think feels incredibly guilty to be the person that’s going to destroy that family unit. I don’t think at this point she’s sort of worried about destroying her own family unit because she knows that her husband is unfaithful and not supportive,” she explains. “I think she is genuine about ending the affair, but maybe she’s finding the affair has given her the confidence to maybe leave her husband at that point.”

Watch the full video interview above for more from David Tennant, Claire Rushbrook, Danny Dyer, and Katherine Parkinson.

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