With lovers including a Bollywood beauty and Harvey Keitel’s ex, it’s no wonder Ben Chaplin excels as a sex magnet in Beeb’s steamy romp Apple Tree Yard
Who is the sharp-suited, shy yet smouldering star with cheekbones George Clooney would envy?
IF he was not exactly on the radar before, by yesterday morning actor Ben Chaplin was “every housewife’s guilty fantasy”.
Those are the very words he used to describe his charismatic character in the BBC’s sexually charged new Sunday night drama, Apple Tree Yard.
Ben, 47, plays the mysterious and adulterous Mark Costley.
Within minutes of meeting geneticist Yvonne Carmichael, played by Emily Watson, they were having wild, abandoned sex against a wall in the Houses of Parliament.
It was a noisy affair too — one of his feet got stuck in a bucket.
They later got intimate in the toilets of a restaurant and in an alley.
“Sex with you is like being eaten by a wolf,” a breathless Yvonne told him afterwards.
Female viewers would also have been left feeling hot under the collar.
Ben is something of a mystery. He shares the same passion for discretion and privacy as his character Mark, and also a magnetic irresistibility to the fairer sex.
He has previously romanced a Bollywood beauty, was seduced by Harvey Keitel’s ex and had a fling with Spooks star Megan Dodds.
There was even talk — played down by both camps — that he had a fling with Downton’s Lily James while making Cinderella in 2014, despite him being 20 years her senior.
Although Ben gives little away, he has been spotted wearing a wedding ring, having apparently tied the knot with his long-term girlfriend Rocio Oliver.
He also brings an air of intrigue to his roles, which is one reason the steamy scenes in Apple Tree Yard are so compelling.
But then he is an old hand when it comes to love scenes.
He has previously seduced Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock on film, and passionately kissed actor Ben Barnes in Stephen Fry’s Dorian Gray.
Discussing that gay kiss, Ben joked: “The thing is, I’m an old slag.
“Poor Ben was dreading it a bit I think, but I’ve done it before and it’s never as hard as the first time, if you pardon the pun.
“The main thing is to look like you’re not embarrassed, to look like you want to. So you make slightly inappropriate jokes and get through it as quickly as possible.
“I’ve definitely kissed less attractive people so it was perfectly pleasant.
“Not the best kiss I’ve ever had but certainly not the worst. He’s got such soft puffy lips it’s like kissing a marshmallow.”
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So who is this sharp-suited, shy yet smouldering star with cheekbones George Clooney would envy?
Ben — real name Benedict John Greenwood — had a cosy, middle- class upbringing in Windsor, Berks, with his father, an engineer, and mum, a drama teacher.
He had a stint at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama but was expelled within a year — before being allowed back in again.
He has said: “I don’t think I learned much about acting there other than how to deal with massive rejection.
“They couldn’t find the right roles for me. Their reasons were rather dubious. I have quite a rebellious family. They’re quite mouthy. That’s probably why I got kicked out of drama school.”
If Ben has not been catapulted into the spotlight before now it is not for a want of trying.
He has worked solidly in film, TV and theatre since landing his first major role in 1992’s Bye Bye Baby.
The following year he played a servant in The Remains Of The Day and in 1995 a role in the Sam Mendes theatre production of The Glass Menagerie earned him an Oliver Award nomination.
He played Matthew Malone in the first series of mid-Nineties BBC sitcom Game On, alongside ex-East Enders star Samantha Womack, and got his Hollywood breakthough in 1996’s romcom The Truth About Cats & Dogs, with Uma Thurman.
Ben moved to the States to capitalise on this, and although he appeared in The Thin Red Line he turned down a series of blockbusters to carve out a career in independent cinema and on Broadway.
These low-budget films included the 2001 comedy Birthday Girl, with Nicole Kidman.
In one notable scene he is tied to a chair in just a pair of blue Y-fronts after being taken hostage by his mail-order bride’s Russian crime family.
Another was Murder by Numbers in 2002 opposite Sandra Bullock. Both films were critical failures.
Ben said: “I got big huge offers to do what I thought was the same role. I thought that repeating myself would be disaster.
“That means I’ve had to take a longer way around, but hopefully it’s a road that won’t run out as quickly.”
By then he had met Mad Men actress Embeth Davidtz who was, at the time, in a relationship with Harvey Keitel. They reportedly got together while making the film Feast Of July in 1995.
Embeth later said of Ben: “I was struck by his great sense of humour. Within two days it was love.
“There was an electricity between us. But Ben stayed away from me because he knew I was in this messy relationship that was ending.
“Finally, my relationship was over and he said: ‘Will you kiss me? Just kiss me? You are driving me crazy. I can’t take this any more.’
“So we kissed during the last days of filming and it just went from there.
“I like to think that all the waiting built up the tension and, in the end, he couldn’t resist me.”
After that relationship ended in 2002 Ben was linked to Bollywood star Rani Mukherji then Megan Dodds, who he met starring in This Is How It Goes, a play about a love triangle, alongside Idris Elba.
Although now firmly with Rocio Oliver, who he has been dating since 2008, Ben has talked about being a commitmentphobe.
He told one interviewer: “Being an actor has an in-built flake effect, which means you can’t commit to things too far in advance.”
Adding that he often has to turn down invitations to friends’ weddings, he said: “I have to be non-committal, but it’s my job.
“Settling down is not something I can really compute as I’ve lived out of a bag since I was 17.
“Being an actor is well paid but it’s a bit like being a circus traveller. There’s no base except for where your friends and family are.
“Wherever I settle, I know I can’t spend a lot of time there so I have to grab the bits of time that I have at home, when I can, and just enjoy them.”
Given that his acting CV is as long as his arm, the sudden buzz around Ben thanks to Apple Tree Yard, based on the book by Louise Doughty, seems long overdue.
But playing the long game looks like paying off for the man who claims he cannot believe he is on the cusp of becoming a pin-up sex symbol for middle-aged mums.
He said: “I wouldn’t say I was really good with women, but who is? I have sisters, so growing up around them helped.
“But it’s weird when I hear I’m the next Hugh Grant.”