Girlfriends star Philip Cumbus – who plays Andrew Thackery in the hit ITV drama – revealed that, while he loved working with the star-studded cast, there was one co-star who was a little trickier – his own son, Arthur.
Arthur joined his actor dad on the set of Kay Mellor’s latest smash, playing his youngest son Sam – an idea that Philip, 28, suggested himself.
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“I thought it would be great,” he said speaking exclusively to Entertainment Daily. “But then the realities of filming and the realities of what two year olds are actually like meant I felt responsible for him on set.”
Philip, who is something of a TV newcomer despite being a veteran of theatre described the experience of having his own toddler on set with him as distracting and fun and really exciting, but ultimately not as helpful as he thought it might be.
“It was a lovely experiment though. I’m glad he was in it.”
Philip had the idea of having Arthur play his son when he read the script and discovered that Andrew had a son the same age. “I thought it would be very helpful,” he admits with a rueful laugh. “You want that relationship to seem real. You don’t want it to seem artificial. In life, when you have a child, that bond is so strong.”
Arthur’s big moment in the spotlight came in episode two, when Andrew and his mother Sue (Miranda Richardson) shared a particularly emotional scene, where she discovered her son had an entire family she didn’t know about.
“He wanted to do what babies of his age do which is explore and play and unleash himself on the environment,” Philip laughs. “And of course what everyone else wants him to do is stay in the same place!”
Philip praised Kay – who also penned hits Fat Friends and In The Club to name just two – for how she handled his very excited son.
“Kay had to be brilliantly flexible,” he recalls. “She adapted to what he needed or wanted in the moment which meant they got some lovely footage. He just wasn’t as good at staying put as I thought he might be when I volunteered his services!”
Philip explained that when he first suggested bringing Arthur in he was much more chilled out and relaxed. By the time filming started however, he was a few months older and much more interested in exploring his surroundings.
“He was so excited by all the stuff, the lights, ad the cameras and the cables running around,” Philip recalls with a laugh.
And it wasn’t just Arthur who was fascinated by the television filming process, Philip himself found the experience eye opening.
“This was all very new to me, the filming process and the TV process. I’ve done lots of theatre work over the last few years and theatre is sort of where I’ve grown up and what I’ve known for so long.
“So doing this whole process was a glorious eye opener and really thrilling. It’s so different in almost every single aspect of the process and the performance.
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“Every day there was an endless unveiling of all this newness. There’s this incredible explosion energy on a film set, you’ve got the actors focusing on what they’re doing, you’ve got the director looking at the monitors, you’ve got the hair and make-up, you’ve got the people in charge of all the lighting and props, so there’s uncontained energy on a film set that takes a bit of getting used to.”
Girlfriends is on tonight at 9pm on ITV