When BBC America premieres Season 2 of the hit adventure series Robin Hood, viewers will see a more mature, wiser Robin. They’ll also see a more mature, wiser actor playing him.
Jonas Armstrong learned the hard way just how physically and mentally taxing a six-month shoot in Hungary was during filming of Season 1. “I was totally exhausted halfway through the season last year after three months. They gave me four days off in the middle of it because I was just exhausted,” Armstrong says. “I was a nervous wreck as well for a lot of Series 1 because it was a bit overwhelming for me.”
For the Season 2 shoot, he pledged to be more disciplined, seeking a little help from a personal trainer. “This guy was dragging me out of bed at 9 o’clock every morning, even if I’d gone out drinking the night before and felt a bit rough,” Armstrong says. “He’d still come in and drag me out.”
“I was a nervous wreck as well for a lot of Series 1 because it was a bit overwhelming for me.”
But Armstrong also learned the hard way that sometimes no amount of discipline can overcome bad luck. “Me and Richard [Armitage, who plays Guy of Gisborne] were doing a fight, and there was a bit where I was supposed to get swung around and thrown into this hut in the village,” Armstrong explains. “And all these huts have these huge wooden bases. I was supposed to hit it with my back and I didn’t. I hit it on my side, and my right foot thumped into this big solid oak base and just compressed and fractured the bone. So I had to sit out for four and a half weeks. They carried on filming but they had to shut down completely for two weeks and send everybody home because they could only do so much without me, using body doubles as the back of my head and all that kind of thing. So everybody got a two-week holiday, which the insurers weren’t too happy about, but these things happen, don’t they?”
They do. We Americans even have a saying for it. See what other surprises happen when Robin Hood Season 2 premieres April 26 on BBC America.
