Ben Barnes talks about his latest TV series Gold Digger, types of women he'd date
Ben Barnes has been doing odd jobs around his house just to, in his words, “stay sane” while being stuck at home during the global coronavirus pandemic.
The English actor spoke with Yahoo Lifestyle SEA recently from his home in Los Angeles to promote his new BBC drama, Gold Digger, which premiered in Singapore last Friday (17 April). The six-episode mini series finished its run in the UK in December last year but is now being released in Asia.
I was apologising to Barnes for the drilling noise going on during the telephone interview (I was working from home and my neighbour was renovating). Barnes asked if my neighbour was doing DIY jobs at home like he had been doing. “I spent a lot of the last few weeks going around, you know, fixing electrical sockets and locks on doors and changing light bulbs and painting rooms,” Barnes said. “I like getting on those little projects when you have the time, and obviously this is a good time to do that. So that's how I've been staying sane.”
Such are the realities of life during the epidemic, in which millions of people around the world are locked down at home or self-isolating to avoid spreading the virus to each other.
Barnes got his big break playing Prince Caspian in the Narnia movie series, and has in recent years been seen in HBO’s Westworld as Logan Delos and Netflix’s The Punisher as Billy Russo. The 38-year-old heart-throb had hoped to catch up with friends after spending six months filming for Netflix series Shadow And Bone, which completed shoots in Budapest in February (more on that later).
He didn’t anticipate that he would have to meet his friends digitally rather than physically, as he returned to his home in L.A. just as the outbreak hit the United States. “I'm having long FaceTimes with people so that I can feel like I'm connected with people, because otherwise I think it does become difficult on your end.”
In Gold Digger, Barnes plays Benjamin, a mysterious hot young thing who pursues Julia Ormond’s character, Julia (yes, the characters are named after the actors!) The two end up falling in love, and family drama ensues as Julia’s family suspects Ben of chasing Julia merely for her money – she’s 60 years old, while he’s 36.
Gold Digger has received mixed reviews in the UK (search online for the reviews if you must.) Barnes says the show makes certain demands of viewers, forcing them to participate in judging the characters and how we feel about this relationship between an older woman and a younger man. “I think some people respond well to that, and then other people find it frustrating because they just want to sit back and be told a story. But I like to try things that feel a bit different.”
Barnes says Gold Digger challenges people’s double standards against men and women regarding big age gaps in romantic relationships. “I think we always tend to judge the woman if there's an age gap in the relationship. If there's an older man and a younger woman, you tend to, you know, historically, we've congratulated the man. And if there's an older woman and a younger man, historically, you judge the woman for having a toy boy or whatever. So I think that it's interesting just to kind of address that a little bit and ask why we would judge things in certain ways.”
So exactly how much older of a woman would Barnes himself be willing to date? The actor, who is currently single, as far as we know, cleverly sidesteps the question by saying that his ideal partner would be someone who is able and willing to become a mother to his children. “I would love to have children. I think that it's things like that which are more likely to affect the age of the person that I date rather than any judgment of age for its own sake. I mean, I can't really give you an exact figure but I try to be open to a wide range of people.”
I turn my questions to the next show that we’ll see Barnes in, Shadow And Bone. Netflix ordered an eight-episode pilot season for the fantasy action series, which was based on a trilogy of novels by Leigh Bardugo. The story is about a girl named Alina who discovers she has magical powers and has to save her kingdom from dark forces. Barnes plays the villain, who’s called the Darkling in the books but is called General Kirigan in the TV series.
According to Barnes, the whole season of Shadow And Bones was filmed within six months in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. “It was definitely the right place to shoot. It's got that lovely old world sort of feel. The show has a sort of very Eastern European, almost Russian kind of feel to it. But it's also definitely not in Russia, it’s in its own world. So it was a good place to shoot, where we could get really interesting architecture.”
All six episodes of Gold Digger are now available on BBC First on broadband TV here, as well as streaming app BBC Player.
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