Sir David Attenborough had to be persuaded to film at a certain location for Planet Earth III, it has been revealed.
The veteran broadcaster, 97, started filming his introductory scenes for the much-anticipated landmark wildlife series in August – but it wasn’t all plain sailing.
In a recent interview, the documentary’s executive producer, Mike Gaunton, said that Sir David needed some gentle arm-twisting before filming on the grounds of Charles Darwin.
Recalling the moment he had to persuade him to film at Down House, Gaunton told Radio Times: “It was very much unspoken, but what David was saying was, ‘I don’t want it to seem as if I’m purporting to be the 21st-century manifestation of Darwin.’ This is his modesty.”
It was in Down House, situated in Orpington, that Darwin worked on his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he had conceived in London before moving there.
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Sir David has remained at the helm of Planet Earth, having first fronted the original in 2006 and its sequel a decade later.
Planet Earth III will span eight episodes and has been nearly five years in the making after it was commissioned in 2019 and then delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The new series, which is the third installment of the beloved franchise, will air on Sunday and will feature scenes where camera crews help rescue animals from dangerous situations.
In one scene from the documentary, camera crews decide to help local rangers on Raine Island, a remote island 75 miles off the Australian coast, to carry some turtles to the sea after becoming exhausted in the hot weather.
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“People love saying there’s a rule – it’s a guideline,” added Gauton. “He accepts, though, that camera crews are increasingly stepping in to help, particularly when the cause of the threat is man-made.
“We are finding ourselves obliged to intervene in a way that we have not done in the past. If you see a turtle being strangled to death, dragging 20ft of rotting fishing net behind it, of course, you’ll try to rescue it.
“It’s ghastly, and if anyone wants to take me to task on that, then bring it on.”
It’s not the first time a BBC crew will have intervened in rescuing the animals they were tasked with filming.
In 2016, a crew saved a group of penguins and their babies on an Antarctic shoot for Sir David’s show Dynasties.
Planet Earth III will begin on BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday.
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