Exclusive: He finds the Royals and history a bit of a snore, but Rupert Friend fell in love with the romance of playing Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert.

Rupert Friend is looking himself in the face. A poster for his Queen Victoria biopic The Young Victoria, featuring himself with a thin moustache and imposing sideburns, glares back as he lazes near the window smoking a hand-rolled cigarette in a suite at Toronto's Intercontinental Hotel.

While Rupert is far more relaxed than his onscreen alterego, the devoted Prince Albert to Emily Blunt's feisty Queen Victoria, he's in just as much of a uniform today as the military garb he wears as Albert. The handsome Brit, best known to celeb-watchers as Keira Knightley's boyfriend, wears this season's leather jacket--indoors--with a pair of skinny jeans.

Unlike a typical movie that has the leading lady role carrying the romantic subplot, it's Rupert's job in this film to take charge of the most tender moments. With no particular interest in historical drama or the Royal Family, it was that sensitivity in the script--written by Gosford Park's Julian Fellowes--that engaged the actor.

"I think it was taking the historical element out of it, and seeing it as two people, in an incredibly complicated relationship," he says. "And an incredibly passionate committed one. It was a very moving, powerful love story to me."

While The Young Victoria concerns itself with the monarch's journey to the throne and early days of her reign, Rupert was struck by how devotedly Victoria mourned her husband after his passing. For the next 40 years, she wore black and kept his quarters as he'd left them, save for having the linen changed daily. "I think he was just an incredibly dedicated man with a lot of integrity," he says. "They were in love. It's as true a love as I had ever come across."

Love in his own life is a little more complicated. Like Albert, he's the more muted half of a heavily scrutinized power couple. His and Keira's schedules frequently keep them apart. In March, he filmed the drama Lullaby For Pi in Regina, Saskatchewan. Almost as challenging: the weather. "It was minus 40 in the wind," he says. "They're very warm people, but I'd never really felt cold like that."

When he does have time at home, he loves film. But he doesn't own a television, so instead he'll screen pictures on his own projector. "It means you can see a film beautifully big," he says. Television, particularly in Britain, is not Rupert's thing. "If I want to get the news, I get it on the internet," he says. "TV at home has become reality TV shows, home TV improvement shows, or cooking shows, and I don't really want to watch any of those."

As for his co-star, Emily Blunt, he'll watch her in anything. "She's a stunning actress," he says. "A stunning human being. She played it so well and is really brilliant to work with. I would do it again in a heartbeat." The Old Victoria, perhaps?