6 Topics: Callum Woodhouse
In All Creatures Great and Small Season 5, Skeldale House feels once again complete thanks to the return of Tristan. In January, 2025, MASTERPIECE talked to actor Callum Woodhouse about the mustache (his first!), cute dogs, scary snakes, working with babies vs. animals and more.
From screen to stage, Woodhouse recently appeared in a new adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s “The Devil’s Disciple” playing in London. Woodhouse portrays American Richard Conroe in a story about good and evil, war, and the abuse of power.
- 1.
The Mustache
I’ve never had a mustache in my entire life…It’s so weird how a little bit of hair on the upper lip can just make you sort of look like a very different person. I think it was a good idea from the makeup team to have the mustache and obviously castmates and family and friends gave me a gentle ribbing that I deserved.
It was interesting initially because obviously when they were writing the scripts, they were not writing that Tristan has a mustache…so there was no dialogue at all about the mustache. But then when we decided we were going to do it, we all as a cast, thought, if you see someone after a very long time and there’s something drastically different about their appearance, you mention it, you bring it up. We all sort of added in a few lines just about Tristan’s mustache.
- 2.
The Evolution of Tristan in Season 5
I really do think he’s matured. Now, there are times throughout the series where that might seem not true because we get the old Tristan that we know and love back — the sort of mischievous, silly joke-cracking, wanting to sort of slack off, go for a drink type of thing. That’s all still there in Tristan.
He’s been put in charge of a very important thing over in Egypt and that level of responsibility continues throughout this series…while he’s always going to be that sort of fun-loving, cheeky chap, we are really starting to see him become more of the sort of man that he does end up being. He’s just starting to think and act a little bit more independently.
- 3.
Top Dogs… and One Scary Snake
There are some beautiful dogs. Carmody’s dog was absolutely gorgeous. I played with him a lot. And there was also..a woman who comes in with a poodle and any day that poodle was on set was my favorite day of filming the entire job because it was the most gorgeous dog in the world. It really was.
Snakes are my one and only actual phobia…I did the scenes well enough I hope. And in between the scenes, I actually did plug up the courage to hold the snake and have it in my hands. I had a few sort of jumpy moments…but as snakes go, it was a relatively small and not too threatening one.
On certain episodes of The Durrells in Corfu, we had pythons and boa constrictors. I remember…me and Daisy, who played my sister in the show, were doing this scene and the director had put a man with a snake just behind us, and I went over and said to him “You are going to have to move that snake, or I can’t do the scene.” Luckily, none of that happened this time around on All Creatures. I conquered my fear slightly, but also it was nowhere near as scary a snake as a big python or boa constrictor or anything.
- 4.
Working with Babies vs. Animals
I think if you’d asked me this sort of 10 years ago while I was on the The Durrells in Corfu, I would have definitely said I much prefer working with animals. But I’m getting to that stage now…I did really enjoy being around babies…it’s fantastic working with both. Each have their own challenges and each have their own rewards. And I feel really lucky enough to have worked on two shows where I’m able to experience all of it.
- 5.
Coming Together in War Times
In All Creatures…once we got to the war, we were conscious not to be just making a series about the war. We wanted the war to be happening, but we wanted it to very much stay on the heart of communities and how the war affected these communities rather than just having an episode on the front lines. You absolutely see it as it happened, people banding together and coming together and keeping the nearest and dearest close…it’s all just the real community spirit. And I think “The Devil May Care”…it’s not quite as happy or wholesome. I think we sort of get there bit by the end of the play.
- 6.
Creating a Great American Accent in “The Devil May Care”
We did a lot of work in it at drama school. I grew up watching Friends, so kind of already had a grasp on an American accent before drama school and then hopefully sort of fine tuned it. I’ve done some film work with American accent, which I always found manageable. The Devil’s Disciple is an 82 page play that I need to be American for all two hours of it. So you always worry that there’s going to be at least one slip up.
