Scottish actor Stuart Bowman stars in BBC2’s most talked about aquisition of the year, Anglo-French drama Versailles. Set against a backdrop of power, love, betrayal and war, the ten part period drama examines a defining period of French history. Cast in the lead role of Alexandre Bontemps, valet and closest advisor of King Louis XIV, Stuart joins an international roster including Brit actors George Blagden and Anna Brewster.

Q Stuart, you trained in London and have a theatrical background having been a regular member of the Glasgow Citizens and Dundee Repertory theatre companies, so would you regard theatre as good grounding for aspiring actors?
A Because theatre’s live, you’re immediately aware of the effect of what you do. With television, it can be very difficult to remember exactly what you were feeling when you watch a scene shot 16 months previously and therefore difficult to learn and adjust accordingly. I think acting predominantly on stage early in my career and regularly later has been invaluable with that learning process.

Q What was your most enjoyable theatrical experience?
A Ah, so many happy times; Trainspotting was, I believe, the most stolen novel when it was first published in 1993. I played Begbie on stage at the Citz in Glasgow about a year before the film came out, and to be one of the first people to represent a member of the underclass with the humanity and power that Irvine Welsh’s words had given us, and for the audiences to be largely made up of that underclass, was a real privilege. Shakespeare’s not bad too, so playing MacDuff at The Globe in a recreation of the space in which he wrote Macbeth was pretty special.

Q You’ve acted in theatre, films and television. Which medium do you prefer?
A My head’s very much in the world of television at the moment. As welI as being immersed in Versailles, my Netflix subscription is being used prolifically. It really does feel like a golden age of TV, and l’d love to continue being part of that. I did a fantastic Austrian play last summer at the Arcola Theatre in London which reminded me how much I love the process of theatre, and the joy of a live audience. The film world has yet to fully welcome me into its fold, but l’d be delighted if it did...

Q You’ve played a very diverse range of characters over the years, what’s the determining factor in accepting roles?
A lf a script is illuminating something that resonates with me, I’ll be interested.

Q Gary: Tank Commander was a great success. Has that made you prefer comedy above everything?
A The comedy characters I play tend to be somewhat dark and foolish, but are painfully unaware of these facts, so the process of understanding character, which is what I enjoy, is not really any different from serious drama. Saying that, getting a laugh is a delightful thing and being on a show littered with funny folk is a joy!

Q Versailles is filmed in France, produced by French company Canal+ and it has British writers David Wolstencroft and Simon Mirren. The dialogue is spoken in English (the first French historical drama to be so); how has this gone down in France?
A It depends who you speak to. In my experience the (French) people who have seen it have loved it and have no issues with the ‘English question’, and the people who haven’t... have. David has said he believes that if Louis was alive today he’d have told his story in English because above all else he’d have wanted it to be seen by the largest audience.

Profile: Stuart Bowman

Stuart Bowman was born in Dundee and his first brush with the arts was working at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh as a teenager. It was here that he got talking to Scottish actor Billy McColl who encouraged him to apply to drama school. Stuart eventually went on to train at the Mountview Theatre School in London before returning home to Scotland to become a regular member of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre and Dundee Repertory Theatre companies.

Under the genius triumvirate of directors Philip Prowse, Giles Havergal and Robert David McDonald, Stuart began to catch the eye of top London directors and producers. He soon moved back to London to focus on television and film projects following a successful decade on Edinburgh’s top stages.

Best known for his role in BAFTA-winning Scottish comedy Gary: Tank Commander as Sergeant Thomson, Stuart has also appeared in a multitude of television shows including The Musketeers, Taggart, Suspect, Doctors, Minder, River City, Holby City and The Bill.

On the big screen, he’s appeared in Young Adam, alongside Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swindon, The Wisdom of Crocodiles, opposite Jude Law and Timothy Spall, and Slow West with Michael Fassbender. His most recent stage work includes Macbeth as MacDuff at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2013, The Marriage of Figaro at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh and Pygmalion at the Garrick.

Stuart has travelled the globe racking up a collection of once in a lifetime experiences from salsa dancing in Peru and surfing down the Pacific coast to hut building with Aid India after the 2004 tsunami. He has two sons Tavish and Solto and now splits his time between Paris and London’s Hackney.

Q In Louis XIV’s time, French was the language of the elite. Do you think the series loses anything in English, or does it open it up to a wider audience?
A Subtitled shows are watched by a tiny proportion of the people needed to recover a 30 million euro spend, so in order to make a show with such high production values English language was a necessity.

Q The character you play, Alexandre Bontemps, the King’s personal valet, was a very powerful and by historical accounts amiable figure, considering the power he held. Did you find it an easy role to play?
A Good writing makes an actor’s life much more interesting. I’ve been given a nuanced, complicated person to play – a man who had to manage one of the most complex and powerful people in history – so I wouldn’t say it’s been easy, but it’s been enormously satisfying and I’m pretty sure they cast the right man for the job!

Q Versailles is a lavish production and has a budget double that of Downton Abbey. Do you think that has guaranteed success?
A Certainly not. The television industry is littered with expensive flops. I think the quality of writing, acting and technical expertise is what will make this a successful show. I’m very proud of it.

Q You live in Hackney, has the area changed a lot following the London 2012 Olympic games?
A We moved in about a month before the Olympics started and we’ve seen a lot of lofts converted and pubs renovated, the typical London ‘gentrification’ process. But the balance is good still where we are – there’s a genuine sense of community and pride in the area that us incomers would very much like to continue.

Q How do you find the travelling between London and Paris for the filming?
A I do very little of it. My family has moved to Paris with me for the whole of filming the first two series. My eldest son is at school here and the wee one’s at nursery, so we’re living a fairly typical Parisian life which we feel lucky to be given the chance to do.

Q You are a very busy man, so what do you find to be your best leisure activity when not filming?
A The boys are really enjoying each other at the moment, so messing about with them is wonderful.

Q Do you ever see yourself going back to live in Scotland, and what do you miss most about your homeland?
A I really don’t know. Scotland is an impressive country at the moment: the referendum engaged me politically in a way that made me feel very good about myself. I wish I’d been there with my countrymen when that was happening, and who knows, maybe, the next referendum will be irresistible...

Q Would you encourage your sons to follow you into acting?
A Actors at their best tend to be decent human beings with a wide periphery vision of the world, and I’d like them to have these qualities.

Q Versailles has been well received and you are currently filming the second series. What’s the next challenge for you after this?
A I am going to be in the stage version of Gary: Tank Commander at the 13,000 seater SS Hydro in Glasgow in October which couldn’t be more different from the intense minimal work l’m doing at the moment. Very exciting.

essence info

Versailles airs on BBC2 on Wednesday nights.
Previously aired episodes are available on BBC iPlayer.