EVER since he got it on with the Home Secretary in Bodyguard last year, Richard Madden has been cut out for high box office.
Playing the ever-so-close security man to Keeley Hawes’ political bigshot in the hit BBC1 drama, his off-duty secret manoeuvres in the bedroom and smouldering looks took the nation’s mind right off Brexit. For a bit.
But now one of telly’s hottest tickets is swapping clinches with Line Of Duty and The Durrells beauty Keeley for bedding . . . Sir Elton John.
Scotsman Richard, 32, stars in new Elton biopic Rocketman as the flamboyant singer’s controversial manager and fiery first male love John Reid.
Reid — who also managed Queen — is portrayed in the warts-and-all movie, out this month, as having manipulated his hitmaker charge.
But whether we will again see Madden in the raw, like on that ministerial business in Bodyguard, is steamed up with doubt — amid rumour that his sex scene with Kingsman actor Taron Egerton, who plays Elton, will be cut out to please the censors.
There have been discussions about dumping the nudity so the film gets a 12A rating like Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. But Madden, who also stripped off in Game Of Thrones, is well up for the gig.
He says: “Sex scenes are never fun to shoot but I only ever do these things if there’s a real justification for them.
“This is the first time Elton ever had sex with anyone so that’s why it’s a relevant scene, in terms of his progression.
“It’s as true to fact as we could be with where it happened, how it happened and when it happened.”
The movie is already being tipped for Oscar success and Madden has moved to Hollywood in a bid to capitalise on its likely triumph.
The actor, whose other big movie role was as the handsome Prince Kit in Disney’s live-action Cinderella remake, is now sharing a pad with US actor Brandon Flynn, star of Netflix teen drama 13 Reasons Why — and looking super-relaxed enjoying the Californian sun.
Flynn was pictured carrying a box of cannabis cigarettes — which are legal in the US state — as he strolled with Madden the other week.
Madden headed Stateside after his 18-month relationship with Les Miserables actress Ellie Bamber ended.
The actor, whose other glamorous exes include actresses Suki Waterhouse and Jenna Coleman, as well as TV presenters Laura Whitmore and Caroline Flack, reckons he is now “the happiest I’ve ever been”.
He adds: “I’m in a very happy, positive place. I made a big effort to focus on that in the past six months, to really find happiness and pursue it and I’m doing that. Touch wood, it’s working.”
Much of his new confidence is down to feeling more positive about his career, which he has built up slowly since graduating from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), in Glasgow, 12 years ago.
Bullied at school for being overweight, the former child actor who made his film debut at 14 in 2000 crime thriller Complicity — again with Keeley Hawes — says: “I spent a lot of my twenties in turmoil — kind of ‘what’s going to happen next?’ and ‘what am I doing?’
“You never get over that and I’m slowly realising that’s never going to go away so get on with it — and that’s kind of before any awards or anything.”
This positive frame of mind has helped. He says: “I was like, ‘You need to just focus on the good things and then work will be better, when you don’t get in your own way.’
“It leaves you creatively more vulnerable and open to engage if you’re a bit more solid and happier in yourself.”
Bodyguard was a giant success for the BBC, with the finale pulling in 10.4million viewers, so Madden has plenty of reason to feel good about his future prospects.
It’s clear, though, that he is not totally at ease with all the attention.
When asked about being a sex symbol to millions of female fans, he says: “I just don’t kind of think about any of that at all.”
Now, playing Reid in Rocketman is sure to change perceptions of Madden.
Scotsman Reid, 69, who now lives in Australia, struggled with booze and cocaine addictions and was jailed for kicking a journalist in 1974.
My character of John Reid ends up as a villain playing against Elton
The welder’s son remained Elton’s manager after their romance finished in 1976 but it all ended acrimoniously in 1998 when the singer felt Reid had been taking too much money for himself. Reid paid back £3.4million in an out-of- court settlement in 2000.
Madden says of the film: “What we focused on was trying to get this element of them being in love, to begin with — that’s a big, important part of their life — then to take my character down a route that ends up more manipulative, more a villain playing against Elton in the height of all his madness.” Indeed, Madden has been trying to shift the image of himself since he appeared as swash-buckling Robb Stark in ratings giant Game Of Thrones.
His all-action roles have even caught the eye of Bond producers.
With Daniel Craig announcing he will hand in his Walther PPK when done with his current duties filming Bond 25, his fifth 007 outing, Madden is the bookies’ clear favourite to join Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
But the Paisley lad insists he really cannot see him-self as the next Bond — adding: “That role is a lovely thing I don’t really understand in my head, but I’m flattered.”
Instead, in his latest film role he has become a song-and-dance man, in gaudy flares and Cuban heels.
Self-deprecatingly, he laughs: “I’m actually singing in this. Thank God for auto tune.” Then he adds: “I’ve not come up against the challenge of storytelling through song and dance. That’s new thing for me to try to do,”
Rocketman will premiere on Thursday at Cannes Film Festival in the South of France — where Sir Elton will perform on stage.
Up after that for the busy Mr Madden is a World War One movie called 1917, from two time Bond director Sam Mendes.
The film stars Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch and will be released in January next year.
There are also rumours that Richard is in talks to star alongside Angelina Jolie in a Marvel movie called The Eternals.
With a Golden Globe for Best Actor, in Bodyguard, sat on his kitchen table — and a Jaguar S-Type in his driveway — Madden should be getting used to the showbiz lifestyle.
But he is still struggling to get his mind round how famous he has become.
He says: “It’s strange. I’m trying to catch up with it.
“Bodyguard was such a strange moment. We just shot this show, over here, and didn’t expect it to have the kind of legs it did in this country and across the water as well — and everywhere else. So, it’s all very surreal to me.”
