(^12) Cornwall Life: August 2019
S
ofia Oxenham was
standing on the
platform at Bodmin
Parkway when she got
the call to say she’d been cast as
troublemaker Tess in Poldark.
“My agent phoned and said,
‘It looks like you’re going to be
spending more time down there’.
Obviously, it had been on my
mind and I was dying to get the
part, so I was over the moon. I
just couldn’t believe it at first, and
then the nerves started to creep
in,” says Sofia, who was travelling
back to London after visiting her
family in Trebetherick.
She’d just finished filming an
episode of Grantchester, her first
professional job following drama
school, when she auditioned for
Poldark. “It was for another part
and didn’t hear anything for a
bit and then they said, ‘Can you
come back in and read for Tess?’
It was about a week later when I
heard I got the role, and then we
had a read-through with all the
cast in early September. I was so
nervous beforehand, being the
newbie and joining an established
show. It was a mixture of
excitement and real fear, but
everyone went out of their way to
be friendly and make me feel like
part of the gang straightaway.”
The first day of filming
was at Chavenage House in
Gloucestershire, which is used
as George Warleggan’s house
Trenwith. “I found it a bit hard
to sleep the night before,” admits
Sofia. “It was the first day of
shooting the series and they
knew it was going to be the last
one, so there was a lot of hype.
There were horses and a carriage,
and cranes, and so many people.
I remember being just so petrified
when I first walked on set,
but Jack (Farthing, who plays
George) was so nice. By the end
of the day, I felt so much more
comfortable.”
The shoot lasted six months
from September, but the series
spans a year, which meant
pretending it was summer in the
depths of winter. “There were so
many fun days because of all the
As the new series of Poldark hits our screens, Susan Griffin meets its latest
star - a Cornish-born actress who had fun playing the trouble-making Tess
incredible locations,” says the
25-year-old actress.
“Filming on the beaches was
amazing. We had some glorious
days on Holywell, near the
beginning of the shoot, and in
Charlestown where there were
maybe 300 people watching over
the harbour.”
For this fifth and final series
of Poldark, the show’s writer
Debbie Horsfield has bridged
the decade-long gap between
Winston Graham’s seventh and
eighth novels The Angry Tide and
The Stranger from the Sea.
“She’s got some characters,
which are historical people,
she’s got the people from
Winston Graham’s books and
then she’s got people from her
own imagination, like Tess,”
explains Sofia. “Tess is very
layered and presents herself as
numerous different characters
throughout the series. She’s a
master manipulator, a real
firecracker, and will stop at
nothing to get what she
wants, which was really
barry
(Barry)
#1