Poldark actor Aiden Turner doesn't feel objectified: 'It's just a couple of people admiring your body'

Turner doesn't quite comprehend hysteria one topless scene can, and did, draw

(PA)

It appears Aiden Turner hasn't quite grasped the magnitude of the reaction sparked by the scything scene that set the internet alight and the behind the scenes still that will forever be synonymous with Poldark.

The attention paid to the topless star saw cries of objectification and accusations that scripts requiring the protagonist of the BBC period drama to strip down are glaring examples of reverse sexism.

But Turner, 33, sees it differently.

“I don't feel objectified - it's funny," he tells The Times. "It's just a couple of people admiring your body."

“It's just like doing any other scene, it's the same as me galloping on a horse on a beach.”

The Dublin native said he takes the attention in his stride, even when his friends are ribbing him over text message when his character appears on scene, brows furrowed and missing the top half of his costume.

“I have always felt these semi-naked scenes, or ‘Ross with his top off’, work. If he is down the mine, he is hammering away — on Sunday night we saw it — so it wouldn’t make sense with a shirt on. It would look odd. In those days as well!”

But his indifference could be related to his culpability: Turner has previously admitted it was his idea to take his top off for the infamous scene. “That’s the worst thing about it,” he told the Radio Times in August. “It was my bloody idea.”