.:Marion of Sherwood:. by Jean Airey

A TV series featuring a mixture of graphic adventure and high fantasy demands a female lead with similar qualities of guts and ethereal presence. The producers of Robin of Sherwood cast Judi Trott as their Maid Marian, and the affection of Robin Hood's band of delinquent troublemakers for the wisp of a young woman was credible from her first moment on screen.

Familiar with the Robin Hood legend, Trott had loved the film Robin and Marian with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn. "That was my ideal Robin Hood and Maid Marian." But she didn't expect that the series she was auditioning for would be of a similar caliber. "I knew very little about it. I thought it was going to be a very childish series, for four o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon.".

Her eyes widen in astonished memory. "I didn't see a script or anything until the second or third time they interviewed me. I really didn't know that it was going to have a different sort of profile than what had done before. It worried me. I don't know where I got my caution from so far back, but I remember saying to my agent, 'I don't know anything about this, and this is a three-year contract! I don't want to be tied to anything.'" Now, she continues wryly, "I would give my eye teeht for something like that, but then I felt it might be a bit - tying."

She certainly wasnt' prepared for life out on location as the only female "continuing" regular. Raised with all sisters, Trott emphasizes that her childhood was far from rough and tumble. "I was just the opposite." In early childhood, an obvious talent coupled with the requisite pitbull determination to succeed sent her off to the Royal School of ballet, where the training was wonderful, but the experiences of dealing with the opposite sex were somewhat limited. "Its a very narrow sort of existence. We had boys there, but they were few and far between, and I was always the tallest person. All the boys were little," she gestures about three feet off the floor, "and I was always self-conscious with them. I went into the [London Studio Centre] and there were only a handful of men there. I didn't have a boy friend. I was shy of the opposite sex. At the beginning, I was intimidated by this group of men."

If she was indeed intimidated, she didn't run and hide, but set out to overcome her feelings. She smiles and, typically, downplays her own accomplishment. "I don't know what happened during that first series. I suppose for the first time I came out of myself and I just actually grew up! I lost that fear of the male company. I had done a film just previous to getting the Robin contract, playing one of the leading girls. I had to be a very smart and wise girl, which I wasn't at that time! It was very difficult for me. I didn't stop blushing the whole of the shoot. I was shaking and blushing and everybody knew that you only had say, "Judit, what do you think?" and I would be absolutely scarlet.

"I came from that straight into Robin Hood. I just think the boys rubbed all the edges off me. They were so natural with me that I lost all my fear. They were like brothers, and I just lost my nervy edge." But the whole experience made it easier for her "to go and deal with people. It was a good experience for me to learn to get on with different types of people, because everybody in the acting world comes from different walks of life. It's not like dancing, where everyone has a similar backround. In acting, you're thrown together and you have to get on for long periods of time. You break down the barriers so quickly when you'r acting. You have to," she laughs delightedly, "especially when as a leading lady, you have to kiss your leading man the first day."

Sherwood Actress Robin of Sherwood further complicated the "leading man" question by casting first Michael Praed and then Jason Connery as Trott's love interest. She credits Richard "Kip" Carpenter, series creator and writer (STARLOG #151), for making the situation on easy one. "It was much easier because they weren't playing the same part, which was Kip Carpenter's idea and the best way around it. One was Robin of Locksley and the other was Robert of Huntingdon. they were two different people. I felt that for Marian, it had to be a very, very slow process of getting to know Robert of Huntingdon. I couldn't let myself fall into any of the traps - pretending it was Michael. There had to be a certain wariness, and feeling of detachment, looking at this new character and waiting for him to prove himself. As Marian, I felt obviously that's how she would be. She couldn't jump into a relationship until she knew that person."

But before she could build up a rapport with the new "Robin", the young actress found herself a critical part of the selection process. "We always knew they were going to audition someone else. They just said straight away that boys were coming in to audition with me." She was asked to do screen tests with the actors on the narrowed-down 'short list' "I did a lovey-dovey scene from the first series. I can remember sitting in field doing it. It's one of the ones where Robin is trying to persuade Marian to come into the forest. It was very difficult getting a response from the men, getting them to actually show the romance," she says in amazement. "They could do all the swashbuckling bit, but when it came to the kiss or looking seriously into each other's eyes, saying, 'I love you' or whatever, a blanket would go up," she gestures, covering her eyes. "Because they're very young, like maybe 22 or 23, and that was quite difficult for a young man to act. Michael, no problem," she shrugs. "Jason, no problem, but many of them in between actually found that quite - well, I thought," she considers carefully, obviously refraining from implying too harsh a judgement. "They withdrew a bit." She continues, laughing, "It's hard to get a real romance! I think mature men find that much easier!"

She also found herself increasingly challenged on the physical front. "We had to learn swordplay for the swordfights. I was never very good at it - they used clever camera angles, so it looked good. I never did any of the really dangerous stuff, just lots of little things, landing on boxes. Great fun when you've done it the first time! Once you've done it, you want to get up there and do it again."

Action Actress Trott was asked to learn not just archery, but was called on to shoot arrows tipped with fire. "I'm frightened of fire," she confides. Fears and inexperience didn't stand in her way, although she had to work to get very good at it. "It took a while," she laughs. "The first series I was really nervous. The funny thing was I could do it quite well, and I got on very well with the archery teacher. I had a nice sort of position - because of dancing - but then I would get extremely nervous when the cameras rolled. It was annoying - the fact that I knew I could do it, but I couldn't when everybody was looking at me, especially when they put fire on the arrows."

The fire arrows were a problem not just because of the fear she was fighting to control, but because of the prop' scarcity. "There were always a limited number of ones you could use - like two each - and you had to get it right. My fingers used to go all sweaty and I used to get really scared!" Her own fear, she found, was shared by the camera crews. "They used to put plastic around the cameras so nobody would get hurt, although many of the arrows had rubber tips. But, they used to barricade themselves when they knew I was going to be firing an arrow! Once, I went over the barrier. It was a beautiful shot - went miles! Some spark [electrician] was sitting in his generator some 200 yards away and suddenly felt a thud. My arrow had gone straight through the bushes and hit the van! Fortunately, he was inside the van at the time."

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