Tholly Tregirls

Tholly Tregirls turns up in Cornwall as a weathered old smuggler and privateer, a rowdy relic of Joshua Poldark's wilder days. He drinks hard, talks big, and treats respectability as something other people worry about. Ross takes him on regardless, drawn to his usefulness, his nerve, and the loyalty underneath the swagger.

Sean Gilder plays him with a grin that never quite hides the calculation, so you're never sure whether Tholly is a liability or the most reliable man in the room — often both. He brings unruly, disreputable energy into Poldark's genteel world, and the show is livelier whenever he swaggers into a scene uninvited.