Doctor Who star Matt Smith is set to begin intense weight training for his new part as Olympic Gold Medallist Bert Bunshell, who alongside his partner Dickie Burnell won the double sculls rowing event at the 1948 games.
Bert and Dickie will document how two men from very different social backgrounds overcame class struggles to become champions. “They were polar opposites,” said one of the BBC’s production managers when speaking to The Daily Mail.
Smith will be playing the working class member of the rowing duo (meaning we’ll be hearing a new accent from the popular Time Lord..) who left school at just 14 to become an apprentice with an engineering company. His team-mate Dickie was educated at the prestigious Eton school and later Oxford University.
Smith is reportedly set to go into immediate training to learn how to row, stop sounding so posh and look like an Olympic gold medal winner by working with experts and enduring strenuous weight training.
