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Rivals stars Aidan Turner and Victoria Smurfit are paying tribute to the late author Jilly Cooper ahead of the show’s second season
“Having Jilly on set was like somebody took the roof off the set and just poured sunshine in,” Smurfit tells PEOPLE
Cooper died at age 88 on Oct. 5, 2025, from a head injury seemingly caused by an accidental fall
The Rivals cast is honoring Jilly Cooper’s legacy.
While speaking to PEOPLE about the upcoming season of Rivals, which is set in the late 1980s and adapted from Cooper’s 1988 novel of the same name, Aidan Turner and Victoria Smurfit reflect on the moment they found out about the romance author’s tragic death.
“I remember the morning quite well, and it’s one of those strange, eerie times when you’re all brought together, you’re called into a room,” recalls Turner, 42, who portrays hotheaded Irish journalist Declan O’Hara in the show. “It just felt odd and strange, and then our lovely producer, Eliza [Mellor] was quite tearful about it and told us.”
“It was really shocking,” he continues. “It was only, I think, five weeks prior, we were all having a big summer party at Jilly’s house, and she was in amazing form, making speeches, filthy and funny in equal measures, just being her brilliant self. She was a real force when she was around, so it was deeply saddening and shocking.”
Jilly Cooper
Credit: Mike Marsland/WireImage
Although everybody was in shock after learning of Cooper’s death, Smurfit, 52, who plays Maud O’Hara in the show, remembers that they “had to keep working” nonetheless.
“She would have been so cross with us if we hadn’t kept working,” she quips of Cooper. “And at the end of the day on wrap, Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Alexander Lamb came down from London simply to give everybody of the cast and the crew a glass of champagne because Jilly loved her champagne, and we all toasted to her on the day she passed, a mark of respect.”
Following Cooper’s death at age 88 on Oct. 5, 2025, from a head injury seemingly caused by an accidental fall, her children, Felix Cooper and Emily Tarrant, told The New York Times that her “unexpected death” came “as a complete shock.”
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Cast of ‘Rivals’
Credit: Hulu
And as the world grieves her death, the Rivals cast will always remember Cooper as someone who never failed to be their “greatest cheerleader.”
“Having Jilly on set was like somebody took the roof off the set and just poured sunshine in,” Smurfit says. “She just came and wrapped us all in love, and she didn’t have pom-poms, but she should always have had pom-poms.”
“She loved every second of being with the cast, the crew, the writers,” she continues, before quipping to Turner, “She loved touching your biceps, didn’t she? And she was so warm and loving to all the women. We’ve really lost a good one. We really have.”
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