New Lancelot is not the traditional knight in shining armour

By REBECCA BARRY

Ioan Gruffudd has one of the nicest voices in the acting world, a soothing Welsh lilt that could put a baby to sleep. But as his accent rolls politely down the phone, it doesn't disguise his passion for his latest role as a trained killer.

"I'm delighted," he says.

Gruffudd plays Sir Lancelot in Jerry Bruckheimer's US$130 million ($197 million) blockbuster version of King Arthur. He's the reluctant leader's deadly right-hand man, crusading to maintain order in Britain as the Roman empire crumbles.

That meant he got to ride gallantly on horseback while brandishing two swords, a role he once relished as a child playing with a stick in his garden.

"He is a much darker, more brooding, angrier Lancelot than the traditional telling of the story," he says, enthusiastically. "He's not the traditional knight in shining armour."

Nor is Gruffudd the Hollywood type that the film's poster suggests. Other than small roles in Titanic and Black Hawk Down, his resume is that of a posh British actor - he played Pip in the BBC's Great Expectations, Oscar Wilde's lover in Wilde and the title role in the British nautical drama Hornblower. It seems odd that the softly-spoken 30-year-old would star in a Bruckheimer blockbuster directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day).

"When you sign up to do a film like this, especially with [Bruckheimer] producing, you know that you're going to benefit from the exposure personally," he explains.

"And I worked with him briefly before on Black Hawk Down so you get that feeling of loyalty a little bit."

During filming he watched his "absolutely gorgeous" co-star, Keira Knightley (Guinevere) blossom into a star on set. Then disappointment set in when he discovered the love triangle between King Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere was missing from the script.

"But if Arthur and Guinevere get it together and the next scene you see Lancelot having a go, it would have been a little bit much."

Joining the countless historians who have argued over the finer points of the Arthurian legend, Gruffudd was initially sceptical that the Knights of the Round Table, could be, in fact, Russian.

A conversation with the film's historian and some new evidence changed his mind. But the irony of an American adaptation of a tale so steeped in his own culture is not lost on him.

Gruffudd had to undergo training to prepare for the role.

"We had sort of a boot camp for knights for about two weeks before we started the shooting in Ireland, where we'd get used to our own horses and riding together and get the horses used to having crazy stuntmen running around brandishing swords and spears and dust and blood and mud being splattered. And then we would choreograph the fight scenes extensively and do a bit of social bonding in the evening."

Reality, he insists, is not as hectic. He plans to live out his Hollywood dream the best way he knows how: "A very simple, domesticated life."

With a voice as calm as his, that makes sense.