{"id":366464,"date":"2026-03-04T00:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T00:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/366464\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T00:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T00:26:09","slug":"sam-claflin-found-spirituality-in-count-of-monte-cristo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/366464\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Claflin found spirituality in ‘Count of Monte Cristo’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Claflin is done playing the hero.<\/p>\n

After starring in films like \u201cMe Before You,\u201d \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d and \u201cEnola Holmes\u201d \u2014 and earning a Golden Globe nod for his work on the miniseries \u201cDaisy Jones & the Six\u201d \u2014 the star has taken on the most challenging role of his 15-year career, playing Edmond Dant\u00e8s in PBS Masterpiece\u2019s \u201cThe Count of Monte Cristo\u201d series adaptation. <\/p>\n

And he\u2019s explicit in his conviction: Don\u2019t be like Dant\u00e8s! Based on the 1844 classic from Alexandre Dumas, the eight-episode period drama follows\u00a0Dant\u00e8s as he\u2019s betrayed by a cabal of conspirators, then dedicates his life to exacting calculated, brutal revenge, at great personal cost.<\/p>\n

\""TheClaflin plays naive young man turned vengeful spirit Edmond Dant\u00e9s in \u201cThe Count of Monte Cristo.\u201d PBS<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shouldn\u2019t be a love letter to revenge. If anything, it should dissuade you from wanting to exact revenge on wrongdoings. It\u2019s about forgiveness,\u201d Claflin, who\u2019s also an executive producer on the project, tells Page Six Hollywood. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt consumes him. When the plot begins, it\u2019s, \u2018I\u2019m doing this for love.\u2019 But even though the love is still there and available, he\u2019s got such tunnel vision that he loses the capacity to love, and he loses everything. He isolates himself to such a degree that he\u2019ll never be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the 2002 Jim Caviezel-led film adaptation delights in Dant\u00e8s\u2019 increasingly unhinged acts of retribution, (\u201cvery swashbuckling,\u201d Claflin says with a laugh), this new interpretation has a more spiritual approach.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s Claflin\u2019s take? \u201cI\u2019ve never believed in God, necessarily. I wouldn\u2019t say that I believe that there is a man in the sky who chooses what prayers to answer. But I do believe in energy. And I believe in Mother Nature,\u201d he muses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found spirituality to be something that I\u2019m really, really drawn to, and I think has helped me get through the past year and a half of difficulties. There\u2019s part of me that believes that \u2013 I\u2019m quoting books now \u2013 God is within us. God is love,\u201d he adds, citing Marianne Williamson\u2019s \u201cA Return to Love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The\u201cThis shouldn\u2019t be a love letter to revenge. If anything, it should dissuade you from wanting to exact revenge on wrongdoings. It\u2019s about forgiveness,\u201d Claflin says of \u201cThe Count of Monte Cristo.\u201d PBS<\/p>\n

While the \u201cPeaky Blinders\u201d alum says the role was far more demanding mentally than physically, he recalls one particularly challenging \u2014 and wet \u2014 day on set, and how the dedicated crew kept him safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a sequence where I was in a tank in Malta, and it was the one day that it was freezing cold. I almost got hypothermia,\u201d he told us. \u201cI was shivering because I was just standing in the cold pool for a long period of time, and my body just hadn\u2019t acclimatized. They looked after me, and I remember getting back to the hotel, and there was already a bath run.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Claflin is done playing the hero. After starring in films like \u201cMe Before You,\u201d \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[1374,434,18,117,19,17,150431],"class_list":{"0":"post-366464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-page-six-hollywood"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116168070833166868","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}