doctor who
As Peter Capaldi steps into the Doctor’s boots, Nick Setchfield finds out what to expect from the new man
Twelfth Time Lord Peter Capaldi talks to SFX about taking on the biggest role in television.
SEASON: 8 UK
BROADCAST: BBC One from 23 August US
BROADCAST: BBC America from 23 August
“I’ m seeing bits of the building that I haven’t seen before,” says Peter Capaldi, in a soft Scots purr. “I’m usually kept in the studio on the other side. I don’t know my way around here at all!” SFX is at Roath Lock, BBC Wales’ drama kingdom in Cardiff Bay. Today we’ve toured the TARDIS set ( recently refurbished with shelves of antique books and blackboards scrawled with physics- melting equations), spotted scrubs- clad extras from Casualty smoking in the sun and almost wandered into shot on undying Welsh soap opera Pobol y Cwm. Truly this is the nexus of all realities.
Now we are in a characterless conference room, ready for the main event – an encounter with the new Doctor. Or, next best, Peter Capaldi. As lean as fuse wire, he’s dressed in a white T- shirt with a faded Japanese print and burly, gleaming boots, just like his Doctor’s. The face is lined, the hair a grey thatch, but you can still glimpse the post- punker he used to be, the twentysomething fixture of Glasgow’s early ’ 80s alternative scene. There’s certainly no trace of Malcolm Tucker.
One thing ’s certain. This lifelong Doctor Who fan is relishing the chance to grow an extra heart. How are you finding the whole experience of finally being the Doctor?
Extraordinary. I can’t believe that I’m so lucky. Sometimes I can’t get to sleep at night because I’m excited about what I’m going to do! I always feel slightly guilty that I’m allowed so much fun at this point in my life. It’s very challenging – there’s a lot of it to do, but it’s the best gig in the world.
“there’s a lot of it to do, but it’s the best gig in the world”
“It was WATCHING WHO THAT TAUGHT ME TO BE AN ACTOR”
You famously had a letter about Doctor Who printed in the Radio Times when you were 15. Do you still feel like that fanboy inside?
Well, that was a long time ago and there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then! I think I probably do, yeah. My love for the show is very sincere. It’s a very unusual story to have happen, that somebody who’s been so into it would end up playing this role. Such an amazing, unlikely event that I never considered it happening myself. So yeah, there are things I get excited about that only a fanboy could get excited about. It’s nice to know that you have the kernel of it inside you. The nice thing is that they don’t have to talk to me very much about any backstory or anything! I know where I am, most of the time!
How geeky were you?
Oh, totally geeky. Anorak, specs, the lot.
Did you have a collection?
I had a huge collection of wonderful stuff. As happens, I think, when you reach the age of about 17 or 18, you move on, you go out into the world and discover sex and drugs and rock and roll. I’m ashamed to say that I had a kind of bonfire of the vanities, where I destroyed all of my collection. It wasn’t specifically just Doctor Who stuff. I was quite a major geek with regard to the telly generally, so I had a huge collection of autographs and pictures and stills, but mostly old Doctor Who. And I just threw them all away, because I thought “I’m past this now. I’m into New Wave music and I’m out there and I’m drinking lager and having curries and going to art school! I’m not part of that any more.” So that was silly, wasn’t it? You’re taking over a character that’s been played by so many other actors. How do you make it fresh?
You don’t do it in contrast to other people. You don’t look at other people and say, “Oh, they did that, so I can’t do that”. You just bring yourself to it. It’s a big secret but that’s all that actors do, really – they just turn up and be themselves, and then pretend that they’ve added bits on! You just bring as much of yourself as possible to it. I often think, when I’m doing it, that even if I never played Doctor Who I probably was playing Doctor Who to some extent in some of my other work. Because that’s probably what formed me as an actor, rather than going to the Royal Shakespeare Company or watching Chekhov or something. It was watching Doctor Who that in some ways taught me to be an actor. I hope that it’s all there inside me and comes out. But no, I never think, “Oh, Matt did that, or David did that.” If you stumble across anything that is an echo… sometimes there are conscious echoes of other Doctors written in, and I love those. And sometimes there are subconscious echoes. But I’ve always loved that about the show anyway. If Matt gives somebody a jelly baby it’s very exciting! It’s two bits of Doctor Who coming together. Every Doctor Who fan has an idea of how they’d play the Doctor, given the chance. How different is your performance now to the Peter Capaldi Doctor you always had in your head?
Well, I never really had that Doctor in my head. I wasn’t an actor, I was a kid, so you’re being William Hartnell, you’re being Patrick Troughton, you’re being Jon Pertwee, you’re being Tom Baker… That’s who you’re being. You’re not being your version of Doctor Who. So I never had a version. And also the script says one thing, and my instincts may say another thing, but at the end of the day it’s a new Doctor Who, and it’s not just my creation. The major creative force here is Steven, who’s brilliant, and has such fantastic ideas about Doctor Who and about the Doctor. My job is to hopefully effectively portray the Doctor he’s written and also bring my
view of the Doctor to the fore. It’s a sort of organic process, because the more we do the more we see what works and what doesn’t. Rather than saying, “Doctor Who is this”, if you throw stuff out there you recognise what is and isn’t Doctor Who. Sometimes he sort of appears, and you grab that, and you say “That is Doctor Who‑ish” – and other things are not. You just don’t have time to sit and make a checklist of what you think it should or shouldn’t be. But sometimes things feel right and sometimes they don’t.
But are there characteristics that define your take on the Doctor?
I don’t know. It’s quite mysterious. And I don’t mean that in a coy way. The actual process of creating him is mysterious. He has many hidden things, which we just glimpse occasionally, which are not revealed in full. And I don’t know what those are! I see only the tip of the iceberg.
Is there any reference to the character you played in “The Fires Of Pompeii”?
Oh, that’s very mysterious. That question is raised as to why I have the same face as someone I may have met before. Or I have a similar face – it’s older!
What was it like when your agent phoned and said “Hello Doctor?”
Well, it was slightly more long- winded than that. I was in Prague doing The Musketeers, and a few of the directors had recently done
Doctor Who, so I gleaned there was a certain amount of gossip about the possibility of Matt going. To be honest I didn’t really take any great interest in it other than as a fanboy… And then I read that Matt was leaving. I was seeing it unfold in the newspapers, seeing all the names coming up and going “Hmm, interesting… might be quite good!” I thought I wasn’t in that race at all.
Did you think you were too old to be considered?
Yeah, I thought they were always going to keep going in that direction. And also I’d been in the show and I’d been in Torchwood. I sort of thought that was my Doctor Who time. And I was very grateful for that, so I didn’t want to be greedy and seek any more! But my agent phoned and said, “How would you feel about being the new Doctor Who?” And I literally just started laughing, because the idea was so wonderful to me, joyful. In fact the whole thing was a joyful sort of experience. But then they wanted to see me and see how I would work with them. And also I wanted to know what they were going to do with the show, because there’s no point in saying “I’ll come and be Doctor Who” if it can become something you don’t want it to be. So that was important, that we were all on the same page. And then they all had to go and discuss it with the BBC. And then yes, my agent phoned… I was dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and I had my phone off, because we were shooting at the time. I kept looking at my phone and I had nine missed messages from my agent. Finally she got through and said “Hello, Doctor!” And I couldn’t tell anyone. I was on the set. So I had to be very still and go off into a corner, dressed as Cardinal Richelieu, and start screaming.
What was your first day like on the
Doctor Who set?
The regeneration day was very strange and wonderful. Matt, who I love, was just wonderful, and I knew that it was a very emotional time for him. The whole place was charged with a kind of emotion. They worked it out very well, I think. I was kept away from the set until the very last moment, so I wasn’t around to see Matt’s final scene – and I didn’t want to, because I knew he’d be fabulous. “Oh, follow that!” And I’m sure he didn’t want to see his successor literally standing in the wings, with the same costume on. I also had to move in very fast, because it’s a professional set. There’s only a certain amount of hours in the day and you’ve got to do the regeneration, and you’ve got to deliver it by 7 o’clock, so you just have to throw yourself completely into it and do it. But Matt was very sweet. I didn’t step onto the set until he was ready and he gave me a big hug, and gave me his watch that he wears as the Doctor, and ceremonially handed the TARDIS over to me.
Did he give you any advice?
He and David have both been great. They’ve both given me a lot of advice. It’s a very small club. Peter Davison’s been very nice as well. I met Matt in the street, just when he became the Doctor, and I thought he was great, so I told him so. And he always remembered that, which was sweet. So I obviously got my good karma for that!