The Last Kingdom was also tough on its leading man. Alexander suffered cuts and bruises, and the scars viewers will see on screen are real. 'I had injury after injury for the seven months of the shoot,' he says. 'Ubba the Dane is one of Uhtred's main adversaries and Rune Temte, who plays him, would bring his axe down on my shield as hard as he could. We had these heavy-duty plastic shields to begin with and he broke them all. So we started using wooden shields with iron rims and he broke those too. The fear you see in my eyes in those scenes is very real.'
