Handsome Devil

In Rocketman, Richard Madden finally gets to be the bad guy.

- Margaret Wappler

Richard Madden is giddy at the prospect of going dark. Hunched attractively in a leather chair at a Beverly Hills hotel, the 32-year-old Scotsman, known for playing doomed scion Robb Stark on Game of Thrones and the traumastricken David Budd on the BBC’s Bodyguard, is eager to shed his broken

good-guy image. “I really enjoyed being a bastard,” he says, punching his right fist in his left hand like a ball in a mitt. He’s referring to his role as John Reid, the firebrand manager and former lover of Elton John (played by Taron Egerton) in this month’s fantastical and much-anticipated Rocketman biopic. “He just loved fighting people,” Madden says. Reid also had moments of charm and generosity, the actor acknowledges, but his manipulative side was much more fun to play.