'Rivals' cast describe their audacious Jilly Cooper characters

National treasure Dame Jilly Cooper wrote beloved romantic novel Rivals in 1988, and it's now been adapted into a fittingly saucy TV series with Disney+ and Hulu. Part of the author's famous Rutshire Chronicles, the story throws you into the competitive TV industry in the '80s, where filthy rich neighbours — Olympic show jumper turned Tory politician Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and TV exec with a chip on his shoulder Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) — would love to see the other burn. And for the most part, everyone's having not-so-secret sex with everyone else in the sprawling estates of said industry heads in the Cotswolds. 

But as Cooper herself told the audience of a Rivals preview screening in London in September, "It's about love, really. I think world's very low at the moment, we all need cheering up."

The series was written and executive produced by A Very English Scandal's Dominic Treadwell-Collins with playwright Laura Wade, and Ted Lasso's Elliot Hegarty as lead director, alongside directors Dee Koppang O’Leary and Alexandra Brodski. It's an '80s dream, a shoulder-padded world of prawn cocktails, Blue Lagoons, and Depeche Mode blaring on tiny stereos. But ultimately, the show (and Cooper's book) is an ode to television in the '80s and how things were done.

"I remember my first job, the boss going off for a lunch with a channel and coming back hammered and going, we've got two new shows," said Treadwell-Collins. "And I thought, 'Wow, this is telly.'"

Treadwell-Collins spoke about people's reservations over how adaptable Cooper's raunchy books were for TV, saying, "I read Rivals over 20 years ago, and I've been wanting to put it on television. Lots of people laughed at me, and television people laughed at me and kept saying, "Ooohh Jilly Cooper. Jilly Cooper.' I kept saying, 'No, no!' It's such an amazing book with such a beautiful, twisted love story at the heart of it, and it's funny and witty and warm and clever, and it's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful book."

However, he ended up going directly to the source.

"I wrote to Jilly in the end. Felicity [Blunt, Cooper's literary agent] called me from lunch with her and said, 'Jilly's read your letter, and she wants to give you the rights, and she wants you to write it.' And that was magic. So we went to Jilly's house and sat on her living room floor with lots of bits of paper and planned out what we're going to do."

Yes, this is Jilly Cooper so the series is about love and sex, but it's also deeply about class. "We talked about it a lot and it's the heart of Jilly's book," said Treadwell-Collins. "British people are obsessed with class, and everyone else around the world is obsessed with our obsession with class. I think what we're showing here is: you may be upper class, but that doesn't make you classy. We skewer the class system. We skewer our obsession with class, with garden parties and dinner parties and Tupperware parties. And as you go along, you'll see these characters' obsession with class starts to destroy people, and that's at the heart of the show."

The Rivals cast and crew spoke to British comedian and TV host Sue Perkins at a London preview about the series, joined by Cooper herself. As they spoke about their characters and the challenge of adapting Cooper's writing, we've distilled their conversation into a guide to each Rivals character and what to expect from the series.

Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell)

The Boys star Alex Hassell plays Rivals' big cheese, the philandering MP Rupert Campbell Black, who spends little time serving his constituents and considerable time serving the women of the Cotswolds. At the preview, Perkins described Campbell Black as "one of the most iconic dashing bastards in modern literature — read about, fawned over, and the subject of much adolescent frotting." I honestly can't do better than that. Being Cooper's leading aristocratic lothario, Hassell acknowledged the big shoes he needed to fill, and said Cooper's presence on set was always supportive, with tiny notes.

"Yes, it was quite intimidating," he said. "I'll be honest, what was very, very useful was every room that I went into as Rupert Campbell Black, everyone in the room was told before I got into the room to treat me as if I was the most attractive man in the world. Extremely helpful.

"When I got the part, I read Riders for the backstory, and once I got over being really intimidated by playing Rupert Campbell Black, I read Rivals too. I had to get over the fear of not being as ravishing as I should be. But as we went on, and basically, after I took my clothes off, I felt more comfortable, weirdly."

Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant)

The new-money antithesis to Campbell-Black's blue bloodedness, Lord Tony Baddingham is played by Doctor Who himself, David Tennant. The brusque managing director of independent commercial TV channel Corinium, Tony will do anything to triumph — over his competitors, over his neighbours, but mostly over his nemesis Campbell-Black.

"It's so potent, it's very British, but it's very human, I think as well, that 'I can never quite be where I want to be.' That sense of always being disappointed. That however hard you try, there's a club you're not allowed to be in," said Tennant. "For someone like Tony, that's devastating, and he can only try harder. He will never be satisfied because he's always one peg down from the exclusive club. And it kills him."

However, Tony's wife Lady Monica Baddingham (Claire Rushbrook) is the real key to his character, Tennant said.

"I love those scenes [between Tony and Monica] because it's where all the armour sort of falls away. You see the little boy again, and he's sort of got his mum there. He's got that comfort, that need. He's very at home with her, he absolutely needs her, he knows her entirely. Because he often runs this extraordinary lifestyle full of treachery and debauchery and everything else, but he always has to have Monica."

But above all, Tony values one thing. "Winning!" said Tennant. "Whatever that means in whatever the situation that he's in. It's the sense that because he can never quite have the ultimate prize, he must have all the other prizes, and everyone else must be at his feet. He's very balanced. There's no daddy issues at all."

Taggie O'Hara (Bella Maclean)

Sex Education actor Bella Maclean takes on Taggie O'Hara, the daughter of journalist Declan O'Hara (Aidan Turner) who finds adjusting to the Costwolds community pretty tumultuous — alongside her sister Caitlin, played by Enola Holmes 2's Catriona Chandler — and especially her interactions with Rupert Campbell-Black.

"I loved Taggie. When I was doing the audition process. I had about three days to read Rivals before my final round, and I was panicked because it's quite a hefty book, Jilly, and I read it pretty much overnight," said Maclean. "I became quite obsessed with Taggie. I think she's got quite an amazing moral compass, and she's in a world with quite strong characters, and she's not afraid to share her mind and stand up to you [Rupert]. And I think maybe that's why we start our love affair."

Declan O'Hara (Aidan Turner)

A hard-boiled journalist who leaves the BBC for a lucrative commercial TV studio, promised his own interview show, Declan O'Hara is the straight man of the series, played by Poldark's Aidan Turner. He's a protective father and attempted family man, but he spends most of the show on his program, Declan — much to the shagrin of his colleague and jealous host James Vereker (My Lady Jane star Oliver Chris) and his bored wife Maud (Ballykissangel star Victoria Smurfit).

Turner based his character on TV presenters from over the decades, including conservative columnist William F. Buckley Jr. "One in particular I quite like was The Firing Line, some of those older American, longform, dusty, smoky interviews. They were useful."

But it's not the only inspiration Turner drew on for his character. "I kind of stole from lots of people for the presenting stuff, and then lightly based it, I thought, on my dad. The more I watched it, that's my dad. That's his accent, that's the way he walks, he had a tach for 20 years exactly the same as that. So yeah, I think it's closer to my father that I might care to admit actually."

Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams)

Powerhouse American TV producer Cameron Cook, played by The Gentlemen actor Nafessa Williams, is flown over by Tony to Corinium to produce Declan's show. Williams found a lot of similarities in the fish-out-of-water experience of her character.

"It was a lot of life imitating art, right?" said Williams. "She came from New York to come here; I came from Atlanta to come here. So I understood her world, I understood her coming here being new, not understanding the world so much. I think what got me is when I read the script, I was just like, she's so strong, so smart, and so firm in who she is. I just felt like she also could hold her own amongst these really strong, powerful men, and I was just really excited to give my voice over to it. It's been really fun. I learned a lot."

Williams studied producers and portrayals onscreen like The Morning Show for her role, but she also got into the headspace of Cameron by channelling her own family.

"I always wanted to be an adult in the '80s. So I just remember those images of my mom and my grandmom — the red lip, the hair, and the fashion — and just really wanting to emulate that. So that was a good bit of my research, having that visual."

Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson)

Played by The IT Crowd's Katherine Parkinson, Lizzie Vereker is the eyes and ears of the Cotswolds. A writer, observing and recording the indulgent, dramatic shenanigans of her neighbours, Lizzie is like the Lady Whistledown of Rivals — and based on Cooper herself.

"Dame Jilly said to me, you know you're playing me? And I was extremely flattered to take on that responsibility," said Parkinson. "But I think it's important when you're playing a writer, to look invested in the people around you, and to be quite watchful, because that's something I've noticed with writers and so did that. But my hair isn't nearly as good as Jilly's, as you'll see."

Lizzie finds herself attracted to businessman Freddie Jones (played by EastEnders' Danny Dyer) and the two share a wonderful chemistry onscreen in the series' slowest burn romance.

"We really can't stand each other. I've asked him not to look at me except during the scenes," Parkinson joked. "No, I was very pleased that Danny played that part. I think it's so beautifully drawn throughout the series, their dynamic, in these quite economically written scenes by Laura Wade and Dom. It says so much with so little sometimes. And, you know, it's over eight episodes so it's a kind of slow burn relationship, which feels very '80s. I'm not sure how many slow burn relationships are allowed to happen in a world of Tinder and so on."

Rivals is now streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ in the UK.