Alex Hassell has revealed Dame Jilly Cooper encouraged him not to hold back when portraying Rupert Campbell-Black’s forceful advances towards Bella Maclean’s character, Agatha “Taggie” O’Hara, in Rivals.
Dame Jilly Cooper told Rivals star Alex Hassell to “break” his on-screen love interest Bella Maclean “like a young horse” during a scene in the raunchy Disney+ drama.
The 46-year-old actor plays retired Olympic showjumper Rupert Campbell-Black, whose complicated romance with 28-year-old Bella’s character, Agatha “Taggie” O’Hara, plays out across two seasons of the screen adaptation of the late Jilly’s 1988 novel of the same name.
And the author did not want Alex to hold back when portraying her alter ego’s forceful advances towards Taggie, who was left in tears after Rupert put his hand up her skirt and made her dance during a dinner party in series one.
Alex told the new issue of Radio Times magazine: “For a while, I was trying to make him likeable.
“When he danced with Taggie, I felt he would be tacitly apologising to her, but Jilly said to me, ‘No, he grabs her and tries to break her like a young horse.’
“I was like, ‘Woah!'”
Alex struggled to channel an “alpha, macho lothario” because Rupert could not be more different from his own personality.
The entertainer explained: “I’m the son of a vicar and a nurse, and I went to a comprehensive. I didn’t think I could exude what Rupert has.
“I still watch things now and think, ‘He would have been a great Rupert.’ But people responded in a way that makes me feel validated.
“This is uncomfortable to talk about without seeming like a p****! But it’s not false modesty.
“I was fearful of playing Rupert because I had an inherent feeling of what a man should be, and I didn’t think I was capable of playing that alpha, macho lothario.”
However, Rupert has transformed Alex’s confidence.
He added: “Playing Rupert has been a transformative experience.
“I had to be convinced to audition because sometimes you go through a period of getting repeatedly punched in the face by not getting the part and you think, ‘I don’t want to put myself through that again.'”
Before her death at the age of 88 on October 5, 2025, Jilly was full of praise for Alex’s portrayal of Rupert.
He said: “I’m so glad to have met her and to have spent time with her and to be told explicitly by her that she was really proud of what I was doing.
“That’s one of the last things she said to me, and that’s really moving to remember and think about.
“It’s really important to me.”
Rivals’ Alex Hassell told by Jilly Cooper to ‘break’ love interest Bella Maclean ‘like a young horse’
