Your Name
unread,Nov 26, 2015, 12:28:43 AM11/26/15You do not have permission to delete messages in this group
Either email addresses are anonymous for this group or you need the view member email addresses permission to view the original message
to
Peter Capaldi is in New Zealand for a one-off event. This is from the
TimeOut entertainment magazine section of today's New Zealand Herald
newspaper (26 November, 2015) ...
Who goes here?
--------------
Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi talked to Russell Baillie
about the show's recent sad turn of events and being the
first incarnation to rock the Tardis.
R. Baillie: So after the death of the Doctor's companion
Clara, in last weekend's episode, much of
the world's Who fanbase are in mourning. Got
a message to comfort them?
P. Capaldi: My message for them would be life is tough.
But Doctor Who is never quite what it seems.
We haven't told a lie. The story is the
story. The Doctor is not going to rest. He
is not going to accept that is the last time
he will see Clara. The next two episodes, I
think, are great and they are driven
obviously by the events of last week. They
are wonderful episodes ... very strange, very
compelling. I don't want to give anything
away and I am not being coy about it, it's
just more fun not to know.
R. Baillie: It must have been an interesting day shooting
that death scene.
P. Capaldi: Yes. Jenna, who plays Clara, I am so fond of
and she is a great person to have around. She
introduced me to the show really. She was the
first person who showed me around the Tardis
... the idea that she is not going to be
around any more saddens me. Though I do see
her - because we do exist in real life as
Peter and Jenna. I think when you have a
scene like that, when two characters say
goodbye to each other, it is infused with the
affection - if you feel the affection - for
that human being. Maybe it's a way of
expressing how much you care about that person
without having to go through the embarrassment
of the thing in real life.
R. Baillie: That's the thing that Doctor Who has long done
too - a fantasy series grounded in human
emotion.
P. Capaldi: I always felt this way about it, even as a
child. I think people don't like to talk about
it because it's discouraging to toy
manufacturers and people who want to sell the
programme very aggressively, but there is a
melancholy that is very present and in moments
like that it becomes very evident. It's the
only show - the whole thing about regeneration
is a strange kind of pre-echo of death - it's
the first time that kids get to see what
happens when someone vanishes, and yeah, it's
a very powerful thing.
R. Baillie: Doctor Who is a show that is always referring
to its past, which it did a lot of during the
50th anniversary, but isn't the risk that it
starts playing only to its established fans
and doesn't reach new people?
P. Capaldi: I don't know. This is an interesting question.
I certainly think that our intention is not to
play simply to the people who would watch it
anyway, grateful as we are for their attention.
I certainly find in my life moving around in
the real world, I get a lot of attention from
people who are not (old) Doctor Who fans and
are enthusiastic about the show and do watch
it, who have rituals about it because it is a
family show and they do like to watch it at
family times. I think it is important that it
reaches out. I don't want it to be in a cul de
sac.
R. Baillie: Is it still a family show? The last episode
had the harrowing death of a major character.
P. Capaldi: I think it is. One of the things that is
interesting when you come out and meet the
audience ... they go from little toddlers to
teenagers to hipsters to students to
middle-aged people and old people, and you
have to tick all of those boxes and you have
to entertain all of those people. There are
very few shows that can do that. I think in
essence it should be a show that the whole
family can watch. That doesn't mean you can't
take on complex or difficult ideas. You don't
have to be childish to entertain children or
to engage them.
R. Baillie: You are the first Doctor Who who has played
the guitar - which you did in a previous life
as well.
P. Capaldi: I have always played guitar. Not in any
special way. I always liked noodling about on
a guitar as a lot of middle-aged me do. I just
mentioned it between seasons that it might be
a fun idea on a list of things that might be
fun or interesting for the Doctor to do. I
didn't realise they would go with it, but they
did, which was lovely. I had this great day
where I had to go about and find Doctor Who's
guitar. We had to go to a vintage guitar shop
and try lots of guitars on. I was a bit
worried I was having a middle-age crisis, that
I would be wearing leather trousers as well as
playing the guitar. But it's fun. It's just a
fun thing.
R. Baillie: And when you're not doing extended guitar
solos, the Doctor has had some long speeches
this season, like the one in that Zygon
episode.
P. Capaldi: Yeah, it was a really long speech. It's very
unusual to have a speech of that length. The
challenge is always to make it interesting.
You can stand there and say it or find ways to
colour it and shape it ... to make it alive -
that's the whole point of acting. You have to
make it look as if it's just happening and
that can be quite challenging when you are with
monsters and special effects which often need a
lot of tending and things are done over and
over again. Trying to keep the spark of life in
it is quite tough.
From the kids
-------------
As it's a family show, we asked some younger fans what they
wanted to know about Doctor Who.
Tim (13): How do you feel about Clara / Jenna leaving the
show?
P. Capaldi: I feel very sad about Clara / Jenna leaving the
show because she's a great friend and she's
made me feel very very welcome. I think the
Doctor has needed Clara because she has made
him more amenable to other people. One of the
things we did when I came in was try to make
him a little more spiky and distant, and I
think she recognised that and tries to make him
more accessible, which is fun I think. So I
think he is going to find it difficult in that
way in the future.
Eloise (9): Which was your favourite episode to film and
why?
P. Capaldi: I like Dalek episodes. At the opening of this
season it was great to work with (Dalek leader)
Davros, who was played by Julian Bleach who is a
wonderful actor. To work with him, with his mask
on, was amazing. And also in that same episode
we were in a Dalek city and we went to the Dalek
control room, and we had like, I think, 20 real Daleks in a room.
A lot of them were old-fashioned Daleks. The BBC
doesn't have a storeroom full of Daleks, it's
got a storeroom with about six Daleks in it. We
wanted more, so we put out a call to all the
Dalek builders of Britain, of which there are a
huge number. Many more than you think. And they
build their Daleks to very high specifications.
Lots of those Daleks came from private
collections.
Billy (10): What's the funniest thing that has happened
while you have been filming an episode?
P. Capaldi: Well of course, lots of the funniest things to
happen tend to be funny only to those of us who
are there, which tend to be workplace gags. I
think the thing other people might find funny
was when there was previously talk about another
companion - an actress' name was being bandied
around as a replacement even before Jenna had
gone. I was filming one day and turned around
and Jenna was wearing a cardboard mask of that
actress' face, which she thought was hilarious.
But I didn't laugh.
Madeleine (12): There have been so many Doctor Whos. How
did you make the character your own?
P. Capaldi: I don't know if I have. Doctor Who exists
already, so you just come along and occupy that
space. In a way that is a great benefit to
playing the part because sometimes people say to
me, "That was a bit like Tom Baker" or "That was
a bit like Jon Pertwee" or "That was a bit like
Chris Eccelston". But I am not really doing
anything. People are just seeing those people
through the current incarnation. So in a way I
don't set out to make it my own. I just play my
sequences as best I can.
** End of article **