 Jonas leads new band of merry men
A REAL life Irish Robin Hood will soon set television screens alight
across Britain.
The star of TV’s new Robin Hood series has admitted robbing the rich to
give to the poor off screen as well as on.
But Dublin-born Jonas Armstrong admits he was a very merry man when he
stole a bicycle for a penniless pal after a night on the tiles.
He said: “I was coming home from the pub and I nicked a bike from a posh
garden and gave it away to my poor, drunken mate.”
Jonas, aged 25, said that he has little else in common with Robin.
“Apart from being a dab hand with the sword, I’ve only been to
Nottingham once. And the closest I’ve come to a forest was when I went
to the Glastonbury Festival.”
Jonas first hit our screens in 2004 in Channel 4’s hit drama Teachers.
Now he is tipped for superstardom in Robin Hood — the BBC’s
multi-million-pound 13-part drama which begins on Saturday night.
The series — which also stars Keith Allen as the dastardly Sheriff of
Nottingham — took six months to film in Budapest, which is the
traditional home of Robin Hood.
But the drama nearly didn’t make it to our screens when the master tapes
were stolen last month.
They were found dumped in bushes in the Hungarian capital nine days ago
after the crew had already re-shot hours of footage.
Despite being a relatively unknown actor to date, the Irishman is not at
all fazed by the prospect of fame that the Robin Hood series is set to
bring.
He said: “We’ll just have to see. The cast keep on taking the mickey
saying it’s all going to change. But we’ll see.”
He also admits that filming has been more draining than he ever
imagined.
He said: “There isn’t much time for socialising. If you’ve had a hard
day in the forest all you want to do is to chill out. You think, ‘I’m
25, of course I can work six months solid without a break’.
“But I had to take a couple of days off. And I’ve learned that, as
tempting as it is to stay up until stupid o’clock with your cast mates,
it will catch up with you.”
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