大象传媒

Nikolai is the headstrong oldest son of the Rostov family. Eager to get out and see the world, he is excited to join the Russian army against the French and show he is a man. Along with the rest of the family, Nikolai has grown up with his impoverished cousin Sonya. Now they are older and falling in love, his attachment to the poor young relation is a growing concern for his mother.

Tell us about Nikolai

Nikolai is fun to play. He’s who you wish you could be, he’s very well read, he can ride and fence to a high level, and he goes to endless parties. But there are also other sides to him, which are interesting to explore. He’s also very blunt and very proud. All in all, he’s just a joy to play!

What was it like working with Adrian Edmondson, who plays Nikolai’s father?

It was great. It was really cool having him as my screen dad. We both came out here to Vilnius in January. We had dinner together and sat talking for ages. I hadn’t seen a lot of Ade’s TV work from the 80s and 90s because I grew up after that era. But now I’ve watched a lot of it, and it’s brilliant. I’m a huge fan of Bottom! The great thing about Ade is that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. At one point, Nikolai loses the equivalent today of £1m in a card game and it destroys the Rostovs. I had to confess to losing all that money. It was twice as heart-breaking to have to confess that to Ade.

How did you find the dancing scenes?

My brother is a ballet dancer with Royal Swedish Ballet, so he’s got all the dancing genes! I go to watch him perform as often as I can. But he didn’t help me at all with this! What did help, though, was that Scottish country dancing classes were compulsory when I was at school. So I found a lot those dances very similar.

Did you enjoy wearing the military uniforms?

Absolutely. We shot at Catherine the Great’s Summer Palace in St Petersburg. That was something else. I was amazed by the number of mirrors they had. The amount of time they must have spent looking at themselves! They wore their military uniforms over one arm – they must have been so vain! They even rode into battle like that, with their coat over one arm. They just didn’t care – they were that cool. I’d definitely think about wearing that now!

Have you read the novel?

Yes. I’m not normally a big fan of novels, but War & Peace is amazing. It takes ages to read – it’s about a foot thick! We’re all carrying it around and it’s so heavy that our posture is now lop-sided!

You take it out to read on the tube, and you can see the people next to you thinking, “How pretentious!” But it’s well worth it. It’s such a rich novel – it’s incredible that one man wrote it. It’s also very useful as an actor to go back to it to refresh your ideas about your character.

Andrew’s done a heck of a job on it as every single scene is so exciting.