Sam Palladio admits Sam Heughan’s “incredible body” gave him “hesitation” over Couple Next Door role

“The only hesitation was seeing Sam Heughan’s incredible body in season one and thinking, ‘Goddamn it, how do I compete with that?’” laughs the British actor and musician, speaking from his Nashville home. “He set a very high standard of toned abs. I got as close as I could in a few weeks.”

Joking and gym regime aside, auditioning for Jacob, an outwardly successful anaesthetist who’s riven with status issues, was a “no-brainer” for Palladio.

“I was looking for something grounded and natural and I was looking forward to using my own accent. I’m not playing a prince charming or a guitar-toting Southern songwriter,” says the co-lead, touching on why he’s called Nashville home for the last 13 years.

In 2012, Palladio moved to Tennessee for six months to play songwriter Gunnar Scott in a new TV series; that show was Nashville, a glitzy depiction of rivalry between country and western singers. Six months stretched to over a decade.

A pop-culture phenomenon, the series spawned multiple albums and live tours that continue to attract thousands of fans, with Palladio and other Nashville stars touring the UK next February. Over the last couple of years, the 38-year-old has focused on his own material and last autumn released his debut album, The Perfect Summer’s Day, Before We Lost the Light.

This has been a creatively rich period, but a combination of an inner yearning and life experiences made this project impossible to ignore.

“I’m from Penzance and I still very much love the UK and its arts, so there was a huge part of my soul which couldn’t wait to return to the UK for work,” says the Cornishman, who also had a lead role in the Netflix romcom trilogy The Princess Switch.

“I’ve lived a lot of life in the last six or so years, like losing my mum. Those big events opened me as a person to some deeper aspects of life, and you begin to understand yourself a bit more from those challenging situations. I came to Jacob with more of a toolbox of experience and emotion.”

Little could have prepared him for some of the more explicit scenes in the drama however, with the actor admitting their intensity charted new personal territory for him.

“When I read the last ten pages of the script for episode three, I wondered, ‘How are we going to shoot this?’ Thankfully we had Vanessa, who’s an amazing intimacy coordinator, and we shot a lot of those scenes at the very end of the production, so Annabel, Aggy and I were very comfortable with each other. We were really good mates.”

That block of filming looming on the schedule even earned a nickname. “We called it Sex Week because all the intimate scenes were grouped together. We were all in the gym working towards Sex Week, comparing how many carbs we’d eaten that week,” he jokes.

Palladio is currently single – he suspects not having a partner during production made the work “a little easier” – and I ask if the drama’s exploration of relationships made him ponder the essentials for a happy one.

“One built on trust and honesty; that allows you to tackle anything together. When secrets start creeping in, cracks start to show,” he replies. “I’m moving into a new chapter for myself as a single guy, which is about learning from mistakes and wearing my heart on my sleeve more. Then you’ve got nothing to hide. You can relax and be yourself.”

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The Couple Next Door season 2 will premiere on Channel 4 on Monday 14th July.

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