Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2015 / January 2016 | Page 30

INTERVIEW

“Living on a farm
is totally engaging
and completely
absorbing, there are
animals everywhere.
It just defines who we
are.”
days on the set can seep into his real life.
“I get a lot of criticism in my own home
for taking an interest in people’s medical
conditions,” he laughs. “Particularly their
medications. I always want to know what
they’ve been prescribed. My daughter
in particular always goes, ‘You’re not a
doctor! Shut up!’”
The latest, seventh series of Doc Martin
finds Clunes in a particularly tough
storyline, going through a separation
with his onscreen wife, the longsuffering fan favourite Louisa. While
veteran audiences might be dismayed
at the break-up, the actor revels in his
character’s new state of affairs.
“It’s always much more fun to
do something that’s awkward or
complicated,” he says. “Otherwise it’s
quite undramatic. ‘I love you, I love
you too’ and off they go. It’s sort of the
opposite of drama. You’ve got to keep
it plausible that they do love each other
and plausible that they can’t function as a
couple. We learnt from very early on that
people instantly latch on to this ‘will they,
won’t they?’ storyline which we could only
play out for so long, which we did – until
they had a baby! People always say to me,
‘Come on, get back together’.”
Thankfully, Clunes’ off-screen marriage,
to Doc Martin producer Philippa, is
altogether different. He stresses, “I don’t
get confused between real life and Doc
Martin” and the family, settled a stone’s
throw from Beaminster in Devon, share a
singular passion for the countryside, farm
life, and especially for their horses.
“I rode when I was a child,” Clunes nods.
“Philippa was passionate when she was
younger, and Emily has grown up around
animals and has ridden since she was
two. So it seemed natural. When we
had a house in Do