The actor says he refuses to be daunted about how his lead role will be received, or it would 'eat him up.' His co-star Rebecca, 29, is equally enthusiastic. 'Being naked in front of 50 people definitely took some getting used to but by the end I was happily walking around starkers!' he says. Max - whose character ages in the drama from 22 to 44 - says he found the love scenes tough to film at first. 'I dislocated my shoulder during a fight scene - but it popped back in, although it still hurts a bit.' 'I got to do lots of horse riding and a fair bit of sword fighting,' he says. It's a massive profile-raising role for 27-year-old Max, son of actors Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack - and he threw himself wholeheartedly into the gritty battle scenes. 'It was a marriage born out of love and many people saw it as the first sign of Edward's downfall.' 'Instead he decided to marry a commoner from the Lancastrian camp.

'He was supposed to be marrying a French princess which would have solidified a relationship with the French, which would have secured the Yorkists on the throne,' says Max. Edward's decision to marry Elizabeth had huge repercussions for England.

The drama stars Max Irons as the young king and newcomer Rebecca Ferguson as his queen. So begins an epic tale of love and hate, treachery and loyalty, beginning in 1464, and now dramatised in ten parts by the BBC as The White Queen and based on Philippa Gregory's bestselling The Cousins' War novels. The stakes couldn't be higher but when the House of York's handsome King Edward IV falls in love with - and then secretly marries - a beautiful young Lancastrian widow Elizabeth Woodville, his grip on the throne begins to slip. The Wars Of The Roses was one of the bloodiest periods in English history and saw two sides of the same family - the houses of York and Lancaster - fighting a long and violent conflict over who was the true king.

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