[INTERVIEW] Peter Capaldi: Who Goes Here?

Your Name

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Nov 26, 2015, 12:28:43 AM11/26/15

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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 **

TB

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Nov 26, 2015, 2:02:44 AM11/26/15

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On Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 9:28:43 PM UTC-8, Your Name wrote:
> 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) ...
>

> 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.
>

As long as he is trying to resurrect Clara, I hope that he will try to resurrect Danny Pink as well! Perhaps he will find them both in the same section of the After Life.

>
> 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.

Are those Daleks actual robots? How smart are they?

Daniel47

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Nov 26, 2015, 7:46:39 AM11/26/15

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Notice he says "plays" not "played"! Am I reading to much between the
lines to think this means Clara will re-appear in one of the upcoming Eps!!

Daniel

Timothy Bruening

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Nov 26, 2015, 7:53:00 AM11/26/15

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>
> 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.

Doctor Who Plot Bunny: All those model Daleks come to life! The Daleks had arranged to include hidden "Dalek" programs in the models. These programs are activated, and the model Daleks start frying people right and left!

Stephen Wilson

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Nov 26, 2015, 1:13:29 PM11/26/15

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"Timothy Bruening" <tsbr...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c2745f83-1b0d-41a7...@googlegroups.com...

Not sure if you understand this, but model Daleks have no computers and no
ray guns. Model Daleks are not able to come to life, and they are not able
to "fry" anyone.

Stephen Wilson

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Nov 26, 2015, 1:15:45 PM11/26/15

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"TB" <tsbr...@dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in message
news:d36794e7-9b3c-41fd...@googlegroups.com...

No Tim. They are shells. Somebody has to get inside the shell in order to
operate them.

TB

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Nov 26, 2015, 3:11:16 PM11/26/15

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But couldn't there be actual robots that are shaped like Daleks?

TB

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Nov 26, 2015, 3:16:33 PM11/26/15

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Why not have remote controlled Daleks with computers inside? Think of them as drones, except that they are shaped like Daleks instead of like quad copters.

TB

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Nov 26, 2015, 3:17:34 PM11/26/15

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On Thursday, November 26, 2015 at 10:13:29 AM UTC-8, Stephen Wilson wrote:

Can't someone install lasers on them?

Pudentame

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Nov 27, 2015, 2:55:11 AM11/27/15

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It's already been revealed that Clara will have her swan song in the
final episode "Hell Bent". It's even already been written up in the
Wikipedia place-holder for the episode.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Bent_%28Doctor_Who%29

TB

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Nov 27, 2015, 3:10:10 AM11/27/15

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So will Clara have TWO funerals?

TB

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Nov 27, 2015, 3:19:31 AM11/27/15

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On Thursday, November 26, 2015 at 11:55:11 PM UTC-8, Pudentame wrote:

Will we see Orson Pink ("Listen") pop out like a soap bubble, due to Clara being unable to produce one of his ancestors?

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Nov 27, 2015, 1:13:39 PM11/27/15

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"TB" <tsbr...@dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in message

news:de4ea52d-5862-4f8d...@googlegroups.com...

What would be the point? You wouldn't even see the laser beam - unless you
pumped a lot of smoke into the area first.

Mike M

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Nov 27, 2015, 1:20:28 PM11/27/15

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I'm thinking I should launch a Kickstarter now for a Dalek shaped
Roomba-cosy. I could store a bottle of beer under it and have it grate
"In-e-bri-ate!" when it approaches a large infrared source.

--
"In 900 years of time and space, I've never met anyone who wasn't
important."

Agamemnon

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Nov 27, 2015, 1:28:37 PM11/27/15

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If Capaldi won't give anything away then I will. I've read the listing
in the Radio Times and there are only two credited actors in the entire
episode of Heaven Sent. Given that the villain isn't even going to show
themselves by the look of it, it's basically Capaldi acting all by
himself. This is not what you would come to expect from a season finale.

Pudentame

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Nov 27, 2015, 4:01:14 PM11/27/15

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If it's remote control, it doesn't really need a computer inside. They
tried the radio-control/remote control with K9 and it didn't work so
well.

Your Name

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Nov 27, 2015, 9:19:18 PM11/27/15

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In article <h1hh5bd8idf7tmrro...@4ax.com>, Pudentame

The original "Star Wars" movie had a remote control R2-D2, but it kept
playing up in the Tunisian heat and sand. It did function a bit better
in the other environments, but they still had Kenny Baker inside for
the close-up scenes because he gave it more character by "waggling" the
droid, moving the head, etc. more appropriately.

In the newer Prequel Trilogy movies (and the upcoming third Trilogy)
they used more CGI and remote control. As he's gotten older, Kenny
Baker hasn't been able to actually be inside the droid as much, but he
is still listed in the cast as "R2-D2".

Daniel47

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Nov 28, 2015, 6:47:36 AM11/28/15

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Count me in! As long as it's refrigerated!! ;-)

Small one for single stubbie, medium sized for two stubbies/one bottle,
large for more bottles.

Daniel

Stephen Wilson

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Nov 28, 2015, 8:24:58 AM11/28/15

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"Mike M" <mi...@xenocyte.com> wrote in message
news:dbrl79...@mid.individual.net...

>>
>> Could there be robots shaped liked Daleks? I suppose so, if anyone felt
>> so
>> inclined to build one. I'm not aware of anyone doing so to date.
>>
>>
>>
>
> I'm thinking I should launch a Kickstarter now for a Dalek shaped
> Roomba-cosy. I could store a bottle of beer under it and have it grate
> "In-e-bri-ate!" when it approaches a large infrared source.

Sounds good to me!

But in the absence of such a treat, what do you reckon is this year's
must-have Christmas present for the discerning (or even no so discerning)
Doctor Who fan?

Mike M

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Nov 28, 2015, 8:33:46 AM11/28/15

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The first War Doctor audio (at least that's what I'm getting, along with a
certificate promising me the Tennant audios in May. So my wife says.)

Your Name

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Nov 28, 2015, 4:51:16 PM11/28/15

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In article <n3c444$amv$1...@dont-email.me>, Daniel47

You can already get a remote-control R2-D2 that has space for a can of
drink. Plus there are recliner lounge chairs that have refrigerated
space in them for cans of drink as well.