Eleanor Tomlinson on playing a gun-toting convict in Intergalactic

Virgin Radio

30 Apr 2021, 10:39

Eleanor Tomlinson joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about starring in Sky One's new science-fiction series, Intergalactic, and working with a Hollywood legend.

The first episode of Intergalactic is on Sky One tonight (Friday 30th April). Eleanor told Chris, “It’s about a group of convicts who are exiled into space and they hijack their prison ship looking for a promised land called Arcadia, where they can live under a no-rule system.”

The new sci-fi show is set in the year 2143, and sees a young cop (played by Savannah Steyn) have her glittering career ripped out from under her. “It’s action-packed, that’s for sure,” Eleanour explained. “At the heart of it we have a girl who is wrongly convicted of a crime she didn’t commit, and then she finds herself lumped in with the rest of us, all these convicts, and she has to try and break free.” 

The Poldark actress plays Candy in the new Sky show, and she told Chris that her character has something of a chequered past. “She’s a drug mule. I guess she’s fallen in with the wrong crowd. She’s got quite a broken history. She eventually finds her path, but the road is not smooth.”

Shot pre-pandemic last year, a lot of the set was built on rigs at Manchester’s Space Studios, and Eleanor was impressed with how immersive everything was. “So many of the sets were actually interactive. We even had 3D printing, which I just don’t understand at all. I can’t get my head around it. But it was amazing, the set design, the look of the show, the costumes. The thought that goes into it is phenomenal. We created a whole world up there and it was really so extraordinary,” she exclaimed.

Ever-busy, next month Eleanor will also appear in the Sky Atlantic/HBO Victorian fantasy epic, The Nevers, and she also told Chris about an upcoming project she is currently working on which, like Intergalactic, is about convicts. “We’re filming The Offenders, which Stephen Merchant has written, he’s directing and starring in it. We also have Christopher Walken, which is very exciting.” 

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky, weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.