‘When I was 12, Nilsen was the boogeyman’
Scottish actor David Tennant, 49, on his latest role as one of the UK’s most famous mass murderers…
Who was Dennis Nilsen?
He was a serial killer who murdered up to 15 men in London from 1978 to 1983. To the outside world, Dennis was a normal (even boring) individual – but he had a very dark, secret life. He took men to his flat, murdered them and kept their bodies under the floorboards. He finally got caught when he moved to Muswell Hill – to a top-floor flat, and ended up blocking the drains trying to flush human remains down the toilet…
What can you tell us us about Des, the series?
Our story really begins when Nilsen gets caught. That is our starting point. So, in a sense, we are with the police as they discover this extraordinary case that nobody even knew was going on. A lot of these men may have been registered as missing, but some weren’t particularly missed. That’s because Nilsen – to an extent – preyed on the vulnerable or disconnected, and his victims had disappeared into London society. Therefore, he was managing to go undetected.
How did the drama come about?
I live just down the road from Cranley Gardens [where Nilsen lived] , and a couple of people had said to me, ‘He looks a bit like you!’ And then I started investigating the story. I suppose it was on my radar – I was 12 when he was arrested; he was a sort of boogeyman. I think it’s a story that should be told, and I think Luke [Neal, Des’ writer] has absolutely found the right way to tell it.
So the drama doesn’t sensationlise the story?
It isn’t celebrating the violence, and it isn’t memorialising the victims. With these stories, it’s tricky to get the balance right – because you want to tell it with appropriateness and sensitivity. Slipping into sensationalism would be too easy to do, but it would not serve the victims of this. I’m very pleased with the end result.
You seem to have really captured Nilsen – especially in those chilling interview scenes…
Well, you know, there is some footage of Nilsen that you can watch, and there’s a lot that’s been written about him – plus obviously there are people who knew him quite well. You sort of take all that in and you try and filter it, hopefully getting on top of it all. What you don’t want to be doing is a kind of [impressionist] Rory Bremner version of Dennis! I guess I spent a lot of time studying and listening to his voice…
Have you come to a better understanding of why he commited those crimes?
I think what’s difficult to do with someone like Nilsen is to join the dots, and I don’t know that he ever managed to successfully do that for himself. I think he was an expert in self-justification. He wrote an autobiography and endless prison jotters full of explanation and self-righteous indignation. He also talks about how guilty he feels at times, but there’s no consistency to it.
Did you have reservations about playing such a monster?
I might have done if we were presenting some sort of gothichorror piece, but we weren’t – this is a cool and responsible look at what he did. From an acting point of view, these are the kind of psychologies you are fascinated by. It doesn’t mean you agree with them, or that you commend them, but trying to unpick what went on in the mind of someone like that is both horrifying and fascinating.
By Hannah Wright