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Prince Andrei is a brilliant young man from a noble family and his wife, Lise, is pregnant with their first child. He despises the silly, shallow world of St Petersburg society. When war breaks out, he enlists as an adjutant on General Kutuzov’s staff and leaves his wife at his fierce father’s remote country estate. For Andrei, it’s the chance he has been waiting for to find glory and purpose.

How would you describe Andrei?

The people I play are always searching for something. They are never passive, they are always very active and frustrated with their lot. Andrei is an extreme version of that. He is this conflicted young soul. He is hankering after something but he doesn’t know what it is. He tries lots of different things but none of them work. He tries running off to war and searching for glory, he tries a calm and simple lifestyle on his estate farming, and he tries St Petersburg society.

It’s a wonderful privilege to engage with this incredible character who is on his journey and compare your life with his. It teaches you a lot about yourself and your own past and what you are looking for. I am very, very lucky to be playing him.

Tell us about this adaptation of War & Peace

It’s about three families. The parents and their relationships with their children, and the children and their relationships with their lovers and their brothers and their sisters. They are totally recognisable, sympathetic and people that everyone can relate to. Most of them are Russian aristocrats of a very specific period, of a very specific class but they’re all shagging and fighting and flirting. It’s a big old soap opera which just happens to be set in the 1800s.

Why is the story seen as one of the all-time classics when the book is so hard to read?

I think ultimately what really makes it so special is that it’s a soap opera. It’s a perfect portrayal of humanity. It portrays a very specific class in the aristocracy, but it’s really about people falling in and out of love - revenge and jealously and loss and love. It is just about people.

Tell us about Andrei’s relationship with his family?

Andrei has a very close relationship with his family, particularly his sister, Marya. Because Old Prince Bolkonsky is such a difficult man to live with, and Marya and Andrei lacked a mother, they found a lot of solace in one another and they formed a very close relationship.

The relationship between Andrei and his dad is a wonderful one. Most of their scenes are just two men totally unable to show any emotion but the night before Andrei goes off to war they have this shouting match, but then as Andrei leaves he gently rest his hand on his dad’s arm and so much is said in that one little gesture, and it’s so moving.

Tell us about Andrei’s relationship with Natasha

Andrei, like everyone is very flawed and is ignorant of some things and very educated about others. One thing I don’t think he gets right is love.

It’s wonderful to see him go from the “Russian Darcy” as Andrew describes him in that first scene and then slowly softening into almost a love sick puppy when he’s with Natasha.

Tom Harper’s been telling me that I’m not allowed to smile. He keeps saying stop smiling because I have quite a smiley disposition! Andrei, particularly at the beginning, is so disillusioned with everything and everyone– a bit like his dad – that he’s cantankerous. Then when he’s with Natasha these smiles start to bubble through and Andrei’s humanity starts to come out. It is a wonderful story and it’s very touching and moving to see him melt and to see the effect she has on him but it’s also incredibly tragic.

Tell us about Andrei’s relationship with Pierre

It’s strange because although Pierre and Andrei have this incredibly close bond, we don’t actually have that many scenes together but when we do have scenes together they are really important big moments. They kind of punctuate both characters journeys throughout the story, they dip in and out of one another’s lives. When they find one another again it’s a big moment and they put the world to right. It’s a wonderful relationship.

What has been the hardest challenge of filming this?

Keeping a sense of the arc. We didn’t shoot in any chronology at all and I’ve never done a job like that. Also, Andrei changes so radically - he goes from being horribly cynical and blood-thirsty and glory-seeking to this kind of depression. Then he falls in love and goes to a high, and then he crashes again. So I had a book where I’ve tried to map out each year and each notion. But it was quite tricky!

Have you been taken aback by the scale of this production?

Absolutely. For me the real pinch-me moment was in Catherine’s Palace in St Petersburg when Natasha and Andrei waltz and they fall in love in the middle of this dance. We had this wonderful music being played by a live orchestra and we had about 200 Russian waltzing extras. We were in this huge hall of what is probably the biggest palace in the world - you know Russians don’t do anything by halves! It must have been 300 metres long with blazing candles, and Lily (James) and I stood in the middle with a camera on a crane. With the circles of dancers waltzing around and the live orchestra playing, it was heart-stopping, simply amazing.

Had you read the novel before doing this job?

No. Weirdly enough, when I did Happy Valley, I did carry War & Peace at one point, even though I hadn’t got this job! My character went into a charity shop to disguise himself and picked up this red book, and it’s War & Peace. So the only bit I’d read before was when I was sitting at that bus stop waiting for the cameras to turn around. I got through about ten pages. But now that I have read it all, it’s brilliant - I love it. This job has actually been a great reason to read it and now I’m one of those smug people who can say they’ve read it!