When Rivals first began, Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) and Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams) were on the same side — and sharing a bed. But by the end of the first season, the producer had switched sides, from Corinium to his rival’s Venturer, and left the TV exec bleeding on his office floor from a serious head wound when he didn’t take too kindly to her sleeping with (now) former MP Rupert (Alex Hassell). By the end of the halfway point of Season 2, Tony is delivered a devastating blow, and Cameron has her eyes opened (painfully) to where her beau’s heart truly lies. Read our digital cover for all the insight and scoop.
When Tennant and Williams came into TV Insider’s studio for that in-depth story, we also had them pose for portraits that are just as stunning as the series. Check those out below.
And while sitting down for the in-depth breakdown of the midseason finale, we had them do a deep dive into their characters’ dynamic as well. Tony and Cameron haven’t crossed paths too much this season, especially once she tricked him into thinking she’d returned to him, only to go back to Rupert as soon as it was on record that his bruises came from an accident. But if you ask the stars, they both admit that their character would want, from everyone on the other side of the franchise competition, the other on their team.
They “were a really great team together,” Williams points out. “The two of us were just unstoppable, and I think Cameron misses that, and I also know that he misses it and needs her. He doesn’t quite know how to operate the same without her and her for him in a different way.”
She continues, “I think we’re really lethal together, for sure. So I would say Tony, but the humanity kind of gets into play.”
While Tennant knows that “Tony would never admit that he needed anyone on his side,” he does acknowledge, “probably in his deepest, darkest moments, he knows that the loss of Cameron is a big one for Corinium — and Declan [Aidan Turner’s TV presenter]. They had all the skills, all the abilities, all the talents that Tony himself lacks.”
But as great as they were together professionally, personally, it was messy, and not just because of his marriage to Monica (Claire Rushbrook). While Tony may have said he loved her as he was trying to get her back to his side at the beginning of Season 2, executive producer Alexander Lamb told us that his love “was about having her.”
If you ask Tennant, “It really comes down to what Tony believes love is.”
He explains, “I think there are definitely moments when Tony believed he was in love with Cameron, but they seem to come out of the moments when he felt like he couldn’t have her anymore. I don’t know that Tony’s a particularly balanced emotional human being. There may be something of a psychopath in there who may not be reacting in the way that normal humans might. So I think it’s quite hard to break down what love might mean to someone like Tony.”
On Cameron’s part, “I think there’s moments where she feels like she loves him, but I also feel it’s very transactional and I think she is helping him further her experiences in her career, but there is a moment where she relies on him for not just professional support but emotional and he’s the closest person to her up until things go a little left,” Williams says. “I think that Cameron feels she deserves and wants more because if she didn’t want more, she could have just stayed. She wanted the experience of being dated out in the open and out loud. She wanted to feel like she is her man’s only woman, and I know that that bothered her that she couldn’t get that with Tony because obviously he’s married, and I think she just kind of got real with herself, and Rupert was kind of offering that.”
Scroll down to check out our portraits of David Tennant and Nafessa Williams.
Rivals, Season 2 Returns, TBA, Hulu