When Matthew Broome was 14, he considered acting uncool. He ignored all his teachers’ advice and picked computing GCSE instead of drama. He was a jock, not a theatre nerd. Plus, what could you even do with an acting qualification? Broome handed in the GCSE choices form, and began walking home.
“And then something dawned on me,” Broome says, “I was just like, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ So I ran back to school and got them to change the subject from computing to drama. From that moment on, I didn’t really care about any other subject. That just became an obsession.”
It’s a good thing Broome did run back to school. He’s only 24, but he’s already a lead in Apple TV’s popular period drama The Buccaneers. And he starred in Amazon Prime's hit romance film My Fault: London. Broome is conducting this interview from a hotel room in Camberley, after a morning of shooting another movie. Surely that counts as cool?
Film has always been a part of Broome’s life. His dad is a movie fanatic, whose office is stuffed with shelves of DVDs. Hacksaw Ridge was the first film that made Broome think critically about characterisation and storytelling.
Broome’s reason for pursuing acting professionally is that everyone told him he was good at it. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and landed the role in The Buccaneers before graduation. When Broome broke this news to his flat of drama students, they all shrieked and jumped around the kitchen island with excitement. “Then we got drunk.”
Photography by David Reiss | Stylist by Holly White | Groomer by Brady Lea
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The Buccaneers is the last novel Edith Wharton worked on before her death in 1937. The story follows a group of rich North American girls in the 1870s, who head to England in search of nobles to marry. Broome stars as Guy, a brooding aristocrat with a ruined estate. The heroine Nan (Kristine Froseth) feels drawn to Guy, but her family push her towards a wealthier duke called Theo (Guy Remmers) instead.
Because Edith Wharton never finished the book, there was more scope for Apple TV to adapt the story for modern audiences. “It’s a period drama that is so relatable to now and has a lot of modern themes. It’s beautiful. It’s fun. It’s young. It’s dramatic. It’s got everything.” The TV show adds a queer romance storyline and delves more deeply into abusive relationships. The debutantes dance to Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers songs.
Although many period dramas centre around young people, the characters in The Buccaneers actually feel young. They lark around on beaches and play party games and make reckless decisions that come back to bite them. To prepare for this role, Broome and Remmers took horseriding lessons together. Broome binged classic period dramas, including The Notebook and Pride & Prejudice. He stayed away from Netflix’s megahit Bridgerton. “We were quite compared to Bridgeton, so I didn’t delve into that.”
A high proportion of The Buccaneers consists of pretty young people partying in equally pretty stately homes. Picture bejewelled ballgowns glittering in candlelight, and champagne flutes clinking in rose gardens. The show was filmed across Scotland, including at Culzean Castle in Ayrshire and at Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire.
For seven months, the cast stayed in far-flung areas. There wasn’t much to do at weekends, except follow their characters’ example and crack open some wine. In whichever Scottish town the cast wound up, they would migrate en masse to the pub or club, and leave a crowd of confused locals in their wake. “We were a cast that liked to dance, for sure.”
Broome liked to make the most of filming in such gorgeous locations. When he wasn’t needed on set, he would explore the hidden halls of each house. Broome and Guy Remmers shared several scenes on beaches. Between takes, they would jog across the shore and swim in the sea.
Following the success of season one of The Buccaneers, Broome performed in The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night at Shakespeare’s Globe. “Shakespeare is really difficult. It’s like a workout. But I actually warmed up to it. This is written just donkey’s years ago. And yet the themes and the stories are relatable and moving when we’re speaking about them now. There’s something magical about that.”
In 2025, Broome starred in Amazon Prime Video’s My Fault: London. The film is a British adaptation of Spanish romance books. An American girl called Noah (Asha Banks) moves into her new stepdad’s swanky London townhouse. Broome plays his son, Nick. He and Noah instantly hate each other, which naturally means they fall in love through a series of drama-filled parties and car races.
Critics praised the chemistry between Broome and Banks. He reckons this is down to their real-life friendship. “In the first five days out in Tenerife, we weren’t working. So we got to sunbathe by the pool and hang out and have dinner. We got to know each other in a natural way which translates onto screen really, really well. By the time we were on set, we had already developed a language together.”
Banks is also a successful singer-songwriter, so she and Broome made playlists to get into the mindset of their characters. Broome’s “Nick” playlist consisted of plenty of rap – particularly Dave and J. Cole.
Nick from My Fault: London and Guy from The Buccaneers both fall into the category of moody, mysterious, almost Byronic romantic heroes. Broome insists he’s not like that. “Nick is very put together and very still. I’m much more… messy.” He wafts his hands, to demonstrate his point.
Broome prefers lighter scenes in which his characters are permitted to goof around, because they feel closer to his own personality. His favourite moment in My Fault: London is one he didn’t realise would be included in the film. Nick and Noah burn her ex’s ugly t-shirts. Broome and Asha thought the audio wouldn’t be used, and they were free to say whatever they liked. “It was just me and Asha being me and Asha. It really worked, and they used that audio in the film.”
After My Fault: London, Broome’s fame snowballed. He now has nearly a million Instagram followers. Matthew Broome fan accounts have popped up on social media. There’s even a Reddit community devoted to sharing every scrap of information about him. Broome still isn’t sure how to feel about all this.
“It's so nice to know there’s a fan base out there and people are enjoying the work I’ve done so far. But because I’m promoting the shows, the algorithm feeds it back to me, so I get sick of seeing me. I delete Instagram nearly every other day. Then I’ll be sitting in bed, and somehow I’m scrolling again. I have a love-hate relationship with it.”
Broome’s personal life is deliberately omitted from his own Instagram profile. “I like my privacy. I don’t really have a very interesting personal life. I just don’t care, so I think, ‘Why would people care about what I’m doing?’ So, I just promote my work.”
Season two of The Buccaneers began on 18 June. Broome promises more glitzy locations, more mature themes, and more thriller elements. One moment at the end of the sixth episode was more intense than any scene Broome had acted in before. The characters hear some devastating news.
“It was just a very heavy day on set. It was the first time I’d experienced that feeling actors talk a lot about, when they take the day home with them and struggle to shake it off and go back to your normal life after putting yourself in intense situations. I remember getting home and feeling absolutely shattered. And I didn’t actually have to do that much.”
And after a season spent moping around after the heroine Nan, Broome’s character Guy finally gets to have fun. In one scene, Guy and Nan gatecrash a wedding. The director deliberately excluded Broome and Kristine from the rehearsals.
“The whole idea is we get swept up and taken along for the ride. So they did that for real. It’s just me and Kristine reacting to whatever’s going on in the moment and having a laugh, which we’ve done many times on nights out. Those moments become really alive because there’s no acting involved. As an actor, when there are moments when you don’t have to act, you’re just like, ‘Oh, thank God, I don’t have to do my job.’”
He reckons the combination of emotional turmoil and historical settings is what makes period dramas so intoxicating. “The shell of a period drama is completely different. It’s so far from what our life is like now, with social media and technology. What’s nice is the human experience feels the same, and you can relate to all these feelings and stories.
“It’s cool to sit in your bed on your iPad, feeling connected to people riding horses and wearing corsets.”
The Buccaneers Season 2 launches on 18 June on Apple TV+
