PROFILE
Callum Turner: Golden Boy
Ceci Browning meets the star of George Clooney’s new blockbuster, The Boys in The Boat
Words: Ceci Browning
PHOTOGRAPHY LAURIE SPARHAM
If you walked into a room that Callum Turner was standing in, and you didn’t know he was a Hollywood actor, you’d be forgiven for thinking that he was a rower.
Meeting him for the first time, close to Embankment station, he towers over me in his pea green cardigan and white t-shirt. At six foot two, Turner is only an inch shorter than Joe Rantz, his character in The Boys in The Boat, a recently released drama which tells the story of the University of Washington's men’s eight making it to the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. No longer a bleach blonde, how he appears in the movie, I almost fail to recognise him.
Before filming commenced, Turner had never set foot in a racing shell, let alone taken a stroke. It had always been a dream of his to star in a sports film, but as a known Chelsea fan it was too easy to assume this might have been on a football pitch, instead of along a river. Rowing was something he’d have to learn from scratch.
“It was incredibly daunting. I remember being in a tank and thinking ‘this is pretty easy,’ and then we got into the boat.”
“It was incredibly daunting. I remember being in a tank and thinking ‘this is pretty easy,’ and then we got into the boat. We went down to the Thames and it was freezing cold, snowing a little bit. I'm wrapped up and I've got these tight leggings on. And we were awful. We had no idea what we were doing.”