Disney+'s Rivals is putting Alex Hassell in one of the most closely watched roles in Jilly Cooper's fiction when the series arrives on 18 October 2024. Hassell, 44, plays Rupert Campbell-Black, the notorious charmer at the centre of Cooper's world, after being chosen from 600 hopefuls.
That casting matters because Rupert is one of Cooper's best-known creations, and the part comes with a long shadow. In the books, he is famously blue-eyed and fair-haired, yet the show presents him as tall, dark and devastatingly handsome. Hassell said he was told the rest of the cast should look at him as though he were “the most attractive man in the world.” His first appearance comes eight seconds in, with his naked thrusting buttocks aboard the Concorde, as champagne corks fly and the characters hit the Mile High Club to Addicted to Love.
Rivals, set in 1986, finds Rupert retired from professional showjumping and installed as the Conservative Minister for Sport. He is also described as the most eligible divorcée in all of Rutshire, a status that keeps the series squarely in the glossy, satirical world Cooper made her name with. The adaptation has been positioned as a high-profile Disney+ project, and the casting of Rupert was always likely to draw attention because the role carries so much baggage for readers who know the books.
Hassell said the response to being ogled on set was part of the job. “It was great,” he said, later adding, “It was okay…it helps.” He admitted he had nearly ruled himself out before auditioning at all: “I actually said to my agent, ‘I shouldn't bother auditioning,’ because I didn't think I would have a chance of getting the part or would even know how to play it if I did.” After landing the role, he said, “I’m so pleased – otherwise it would have been terribly awkward, wouldn’t it?”
The actor also gave his own reading of Rupert's appeal. “Someone said that Rupert was the James Bond of erotica or something,” he said. “And in my mind, there's definitely more of Roger Moore… he’s got his tongue firmly in his cheek.” That version of Rupert may be the key to why Cooper approved the casting so warmly: not a copy of the book's blond ideal, but a performance that leans into the character's vanity, wit and mischief. With the series due this autumn, the question is no longer whether Rupert Campbell-Black is being adapted, but whether Hassell's version can carry the swagger that made him famous in the first place.
