TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I am Terry Gross. Today's guest, David Tennant, is best known as an actor, but he also has an interview podcast, which is now in its third season. Some of this year's guests include Stanley Tucci, Ben Schwartz and Rosamund Pike. Tennant spoke with FRESH AIR's Sam Briger. Here's Sam.
SAM BRIGER, BYLINE: Scottish actor David Tennant's list of accomplishments is as long as it is varied. Perhaps best known for playing Doctor Who, he is also considered one of the finest Shakespearean actors of his generation, as you can see now in the film of his "Macbeth," which was staged in 2023, with Tennant playing the lead and Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth. It's now streaming on Marquee TV. He has also memorably played Hamlet and Richard II. You probably watched him as the haunted and brooding detective in the British crime drama "Broadchurch" and maybe even in the American adaptation called "Gracepoint," where he plays more or less the same role, but with an American accent.
David Tennant has also been his share of screen villains, including real-life serial killer Dennis Nilsen in the miniseries "Des," Kilgrave in the Marvel TV show "Jessica Jones," one of the most repugnant characters I have ever seen, as well as the smaller but memorable lip-licking Barty Crouch Jr. in "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire." He also hosted the BAFTA Awards for the past two years - Great Britain's version of the Oscars - this year opening the ceremony singing the song "500 Miles" in a bespoke black jacket and kilt suit. And he was hilarious to watch playing a version of himself in the streaming comedy "Staged" with Michael Sheen, one of the few good things to come out of the COVID pandemic.
David Tennant also has a podcast called "David Tennant Does A Podcast With...", where you fill in the name of the guest from that episode, often an actor he has worked with. A third season of the podcast released this year. And while we might have said, hey, David Tennant, stay in your lane, there's enough long-format interview shows out there, instead, we decided that this would be a good opportunity to have him on our long-format interview show to ask him about his life and career. So, David Tennant, welcome to FRESH AIR.
DAVID TENNANT: Thank you very much for having me.
BRIGER: You did two seasons of your podcast ending in 2020, but then you came back last month with the third season. Why did you come back now?
TENNANT: There was a certain sense of there were a few people I had either meant to interview or had sort of got to know in the interim, and I thought I would have naturally interviewed them when I've done this podcast before, so maybe now it's an opportunity to kind of scoop them up. It really has always been the case with the podcast. It's something I've done - I don't mean to minimize it, but it's almost been a hobby, like a sideline, like a sort of thing I've done for pleasure when I've had a moment. It's never been my principal job. So it was just a sort of moment of opportunity.
BRIGER: When you go into these interviews, like, do you have a specific agenda? Like, are you - when you're like, oh, Olivia Colman, I've always wanted to know this about her, or do you sometimes think about things in your own career which have puzzled you that gives you an opportunity to ask someone else who does the same work the question?
TENNANT: Yeah. There certainly - there's definitely a bit of that, a bit of -there are some slightly odd things about being in this profession and what it sort of does to your life outside the work that is the sort of bit you don't get trained for at a drama school. You know, one of the sort of side effects of being successful as an actor, I suppose, is that you lose an element of anonymity. And I found that, personally, quite challenging when it happened to me. So I'm always quite intrigued to know how others have dealt with that or are dealing with that, or kind of characterize what that does to them and the people around them.
But it's a mixture of things. You're also just -again, if it's someone you know, you're often interested in sort of celebrating them and wanting the world to know them and understand what's likable about them because there's a sort of delight in celebrating that to the public somehow. So it's always - yes, it's always a mixture of impulses, I think.
BRIGER: Speaking about coping with being a celebrity, you tell a story that someone asked you for an autograph while you were naked in a shower at the gym.
TENNANT: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, and moments like that are quite peculiar.
BRIGER: Yes. I'd say so.
TENNANT: Yes. Perhaps that's stating the obvious. But just, it's quite - I'm always quite intrigued to know if other people have had similar experiences and how they - or how they would have dealt with experiences like that, because I think it's quite - it's a bit of a sort of club that you can't really expect any sort of sympathy for because it's a very privileged position to be in. But it's - you know, it's a complicated one. It's one I struggle with because you're also very aware if someone wants to have a moment's interaction with you, that they're sort of - that moment for them is representing all the work you might have done that has meant something to them. So that's a hugely - it's quite a precious moment for someone else, whereas you might be just thinking, I'm going to be late for this appointment that...
BRIGER: Or you're having a bad day or something?
TENNANT: Or you're having a bad day. Yeah. And, of course, that you're not really going to make the situation better by explaining to someone why this is an inappropriate moment, if they're not seeing that for themselves. I draw you back to the moment in the shower. That man obviously didn't understand why I was finding this peculiar and odd. So it became simpler to sort of carve a signature into what was the mulch of the piece of paper that he was now holding under a shower. And sort of - he said, thank you very much, and went on his way.
BRIGER: Well, I wanted to talk about another version of David Tennant that you've played on three seasons of the show "Staged" with Michael Sheen.
TENNANT: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
BRIGER: This show largely takes place - at least it seems to - I don't know if it was filmed this way - but as a series of Zoom calls between you and Michael Sheen and your respective spouses and other people. At least in the first season, you're rehearsing this play during COVID, hoping that when the lockdown is over, you'll have this thing ready to go. And, of course, that doesn't work out so well. But - so how did this show come about?
TENNANT: It was an absolutely opportunistic pitch by a friend of - well, actually, someone that my wife was at school with, who's a film producer called Phin Glynn, who we - both Georgia and I - have worked with on various projects over the years. And a few days into that first lockdown - must have been March 2020 - Phin phoned us up and went, I might have an idea of something we could make while we're all locked in our houses. It was entirely his baby. He went off, got a script written. We went off and enlisted Michael Sheen and Anna Lundberg, who were locked in their house in Wales. And between us, we just made one on spec. Simon Evans, who plays the director in the show, is also the director and also wrote the script very quickly and very cleverly. Neither Michael nor Georgia nor myself or Anna had met Simon, but we got to know him very well over Zoom, and it all happened...
BRIGER: He was quite funny in the show.
TENNANT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.
BRIGER: I have to say that when I first heard about the show, I didn't think I was going to enjoy watching it. Like, we were...
TENNANT: Oh, no - sounds desperately dull.
BRIGER: Well, yeah.
TENNANT: And also...
BRIGER: Well, we...
TENNANT: ...It was reflecting...
BRIGER: Right.
TENNANT: ...That we were all living...
BRIGER: We were all living our lives on Zoom.
TENNANT: Yeah. Yeah.
BRIGER: And the last thing I want to do is watch a TV show about Zoom. However, it quickly won me over because it's so funny. I thought we would play a scene from the show.
TENNANT: Oh, good.
BRIGER: To set this up, Michael Sheen is irritated with you at this point.
TENNANT: That does - that tracks (ph).
BRIGER: Yeah (laughter), because originally, you were going to do this play with someone else, so he was the second choice. So you guys are doing a reading, and I think we'll also hear Simon Evans in this, and he's desperate to keep things on track. But Michael Sheen is basically trying to pick a fight with you. And you have had a line where you used the word heard, and he's questioning how you're saying that word. So let's hear that.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "STAGED")
TENNANT: What's wrong with my words?
MICHAEL SHEEN: I'm struggling to believe them. There's a lot going on there.
TENNANT: A lot going on? OK.
SHEEN: Would you try something for me?
TENNANT: Oh, sure. Happy to, yeah.
SHEEN: Is that OK, Simon?
SIMON EVANS: I'd rather we just pushed on, actually.
SHEEN: Won't take a sec. Just give me I want to be heard again.
TENNANT: I want to be heard.
SHEEN: Simon?
EVANS: I thought that was great.
SHEEN: You don't think he sounds cartoonish.
TENNANT: Cartoonish?
SHEEN: I've thought it for a while now.
EVANS: Absolutely not. No, I don't. David, it's with you - I want to be heard.
TENNANT: I want to be heard.
SHEEN: I want to be heard.
EVANS: Please, can we carry on?
SHEEN: I want to be heard.
TENNANT: I want to be heard.
SHEEN: I want to be heard.
TENNANT: I want to be heard.
SHEEN: I want to be heard.
TENNANT: I want to be heard.
SHEEN: I want to be heard.
TENNANT: It's got to have something - I want to be heard. It's got to have something behind it.
SHEEN: No, it's got to come from somewhere.
TENNANT: Just because you're mumbling doesn't make it good.
SHEEN: I speak the same language as you. You don't have to speak to me from a different...
TENNANT: Well, you're barely speaking, though. You're barely speaking. You're whispering it.
SHEEN: I want to be heard. Let's pretend we're all human beings. I want to be heard.
TENNANT: Yeah, who have ears that need to receive the vibrations.
SHEEN: I mean, it's not a hearing thing. It's sort of a feeling thing.
TENNANT: You know, what I'm doing makes sense, and what you're doing is a sort of weird...
SHEEN: It might sound weird to you because you won't have been used to hearing that coming out of yourself.
TENNANT: It's so affected, if you don't mind me saying. (Imitating Michael Sheen) I want to be heard.
SHEEN: Isn't it interesting, Simon, that if you spend a career...
TENNANT: Is that interesting?
SHEEN: ...Speaking in such a stilted, sort of artificial way, then hearing something that's truthful can sound affected to you.
EVANS: I want to be heard.
BRIGER: That's a scene from the show "Staged" with Michael Sheen and our guest, David Tennant. David Tennant, there's so many times watching that show where I just laughed out loud. You guys have such a great rapport. Can you talk about the version of yourself that you're playing in this show?
TENNANT: I think we quite enjoyed playing awful versions of ourselves.
BRIGER: (Laughter).
TENNANT: We were pretty happy to lean into that. Interestingly, Simon said that one of the things he did as he was writing it was listen to the episode of my podcast with Michael Sheen. Again, I don't know what that says about - I mean, Michael's this sort of rather pompous or a grand character...
BRIGER: Yeah, arrogant actor
TENNANT: Rather arrogant actor. I'm a sort of whining, miserabilist. (Laughter) And then the two...
BRIGER: Well, you're described as weaselly at one point, too (laughter).
TENNANT: Yes, I am described as weaselly. And I don't know where that came from, but it certainly seemed to fit well enough for us to lean pretty hard into it and rather enjoy leaning into it. I mean, even listening to that, when I hear bits of it back, it does make me smile. I suppose because it reminds me of a moment in time where there wasn't an awful lot going on other than homeschooling our children, which was a real fresh hell that we were all trying to catch up with.
BRIGER: Yeah.
TENNANT: And being locked in our house. And although, you know, in many ways, I didn't dislike lockdown at all because I was very happy to be locked in my house and kept away from other human beings beyond my own family. It was certainly lovely to have that release, and that creative release, particularly.
BRIGER: Well, it's so funny. Just your look on the show, you just look stupefied with boredom the whole time.
TENNANT: (Laughter).
BRIGER: Your mouth is hanging open.
(LAUGHTER)
TENNANT: Well, it was a particular time, isn't it?
BRIGER: It certainly was. One of the funny sight gags is that you keep getting caught drinking out of this mug with your face on it (laughter).
TENNANT: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
BRIGER: And they keep saying, is that you on that mug?
TENNANT: Yeah.
BRIGER: And you deny it.
TENNANT: Yes, lots of bits of that were sort of inspired by what was happening around us. We do happen to have a couple of mugs in my house that may or may not have my face on them.
BRIGER: (Laughter).
TENNANT: And I can't remember quite the origin of that particular gag. But it was either we were on a Zoom discussing what we were going to do and I had the mug there, or I brought it, and maybe I suggested it one day. Anyway, it became a sort of long-running gag that runs throughout...
BRIGER: That's very funny (laughter)
TENNANT: ...Three seasons, I think. Yeah.
BRIGER: So you said you were home. You and your wife, Georgia, have five kids. I have two kids. And it was very tough to sort of keep them busy, keep them on their schooling during COVID. What was it like with five? Like, was your house just crazy all the time?
TENNANT: We're fortunate that we have a fair amount of space. And we've got a bit of outdoor space, which I think it would've killed us without that. But, yes, of course, it was challenging. Our youngest was brand-new. She was born towards the end of 2019. So we had a very small baby, with all the pleasures and difficulties that that brings, three who were in school. That was the real hell, the homeschooling, just trying to be the sort of manager-come-teacher that keeps them on track was very, very hard. And then our eldest, his 18th birthday came three, four days after lockdown was called. So his big 18th birthday celebration was spent staring at us over the kitchen table.
BRIGER: (Laughter).
TENNANT: I still feel like he got slightly shortchanged there.
BRIGER: Yeah. Yeah. If you're just joining us, our guest is actor David Tennant. He has his own interview podcast called "David Tennant Does A Podcast With..." that's now in its third season. We'll be back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAKE SHIMABUKURO'S "143 (KELLY'S SONG)")
BRIGER: This is FRESH AIR. We're speaking with stage and screen actor David Tennant. The third season of his interview podcast is out now. It's called "David Tennant Does A Podcast With..."
So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your work doing Shakespeare. Your version of "Macbeth" that I think was originally staged in 2023 is now available to stream on Marquee TV. And...
TENNANT: Right.
BRIGER: You star with Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth.
TENNANT: Yeah.
BRIGER: So this is a very minimalist staging. The stage itself is pretty much like this white platform.
TENNANT: Yeah.
BRIGER: And the audience is sort of around the stage. And I noticed watching the film of it that all the audience members were wearing headphones. Why was that?
TENNANT: Max Webster, our director, it was one of his very earliest ideas. He was fascinated with the idea of Macbeth as a soldier. He'd done a production of "Henry V" where they'd looked a lot into the actuality of being a soldier who goes to war, what that might do to you, ideas around PTSD and shell shock - and he talked to people who'd experienced that - and the idea that one would hear voices, that one would imagine things were happening that weren't. And he sort of took the idea of PTSD and put it onto Macbeth, and it kind of fits remarkably well. I mean, who knows what Shakespeare's experience was with veterans from whatever wars were around at the time. But it feels like it all tracks with how modern-day veterans describe some of the things they struggle with after tours of duty.
And he started working with a sound designer called Gareth Fry, who had done other shows where the audiences all wore headphones, and you can do extraordinary things, then, to the audience's experience because for a start, you can whisper very quietly, and you can move where that whisper is. So if you can do that for the audience, they get an understanding of perhaps what's happening inside Macbeth's very troubled brain.
So you could - particularly when so much of what Macbeth says is in soliloquy, which is an address to the audience, I think it was just using a tool that was available and adding to that, you have a sort of soundscape, which is happening the whole time. You're mixing in the music. You're mixing in sound effects that may or may not be live on stage in front of you, which, again, is adding to that sense of disconcertion and what's real, what isn't real. So it was a sort of conceptual way of telling this very well-told story, perhaps in a slightly new, quite modern way, while still being entirely faithful to the text that Shakespeare wrote.
BRIGER: Let's hear what one of those soliloquies sounds like. This is the famous "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow"...
TENNANT: Oh, OK.
BRIGER: ...Soliloquy from the end of the play, and you have just discovered that Lady Macbeth has been killed.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MACBETH")
TENNANT: (As Macbeth) Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot. It's full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
BRIGER: OK. So that's from the film version of "Macbeth." So, you know, I'm wearing headphones now, so I feel like I'm sort of experiencing what that would have been like for the audience because you are really whispering. And I guess I was wondering, like, if you were doing that in a more traditional theater sense and you had to project to the cheap seats, like, how do you approach that same speech in those sort of two different scenarios?
TENNANT: It's hard to know because, you know, when you prepare a production like that, you kind of know what your version of it needs to be. I've never heard that back, so it's hard. I don't know. All I'm hearing is what I would have done differently. But...
BRIGER: What would you have done differently?
TENNANT: Oh, I don't know. You know, I think that speech, in particular, actually was probably - out of the whole play, that was sort of never quite the same twice. So you've got a version of it from the time...
BRIGER: And how many times did do the play? Like, hundreds of times?
TENNANT: Oh, like, 150 or something.
BRIGER: Yeah. So every time it feels different?
TENNANT: Yes. I think that speech more than any because it comes near the end. It's the - probably the most emotional moment. It's the moment where Lady Macbeth is gone. He knows it's all over. It's really just a case of how he's going to go down rather than if he will. And it was, particularly in our staging, it was right out the back. I was sort of sitting very much my own. I couldn't - the lighting was such that I was in a pool of darkness.
And I sort of tried to dare myself every night to kind of find it. But that particular moment sort of afresh each time. Obviously, that's what you're always trying to do. It's easier with something like Shakespeare because the words are pretty bottomless and they have lots of different available meanings. And that's why actors love doing it so much because on performance 150, you can suddenly hear a line that you thought you knew inside out. You can sort of hear it in a brand-new way. And that's - obviously, that's a thrill and also a bit frustrating 'cause you're going to go, oh, that's how I should have done that.
BRIGER: Right.
TENNANT: Can I go back and do the first hundred performances again, please?
BRIGER: Our guest is David Tennant. He'll be back after a short break. I'm Sam Briger, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF DELIA DERBYSHIRE'S "DOCTOR WHO OPENING TITLE THEME")
BRIGER: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Sam Briger. Our guest is actor David Tennant. He has an interview podcast called "David Tennant Does A Podcast With..." that is now out in its third season. Tennant is as comfortable playing characters with their own spaceships, as he did for the role of Doctor Who, as he is holding up poor Yorick's skull as Hamlet. The filmed adaptation of his Macbeth is now available for streaming. It costars Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth.
So, David, you grew up outside of Glasgow in Paisley. Your father was a Presbyterian minister. So do you remember your father's sermons? Were they fiery or more contemplative?
TENNANT: Oh, he could get quite fiery. Yes, he was quite a performer, my dad. There was definitely a bit of an old ham about him. And, yes, it wasn't fire and brimstone so much, although it could get there. You know, he could get a little bit - he would thump the pulpit now and again. But no, he was definitely a performer. And he was a very good preacher, actually. People would ask him to come and guest preach in various places. I think he was very well thought of. And he was very loved. He was a very good minister. His congregation liked him. And he was kind, and he was patient and all the things that I guess you have to be in that job. But no, he was a good preacher, yeah.
BRIGER: Well, he must've been because for a year, he served as the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which is basically, like...
TENNANT: That's right.
BRIGER: ...The highest position...
TENNANT: Yeah.
BRIGER: ...In the church.
TENNANT: The highest position but on a revolving, yearly basis.
BRIGER: Right, it's yearly basis, right.
TENNANT: Because the Church of Scotland is built on the idea that there should be no hierarchy. So you take a turn and you step back again.
BRIGER: He also had a TV show called "That's The Spirit" that he cohosted.
TENNANT: He did, he did.
BRIGER: What was that show like? Did you ever go to the set?
TENNANT: I did, actually, yes. It was on Scottish television. But, yes, he did. On a Sunday afternoon in Scotland, you could see my dad in "That's The Spirit." It was a sort of religious magazine program. So, you know, he would go and meet a community project. He would do a little bit to camera, where he gave a little message for the day. He'd do interviews with people who were doing interesting or important things in the world of, I suppose, divinity or outreach or whatever it was. But, yeah, he did that for quite a few years. And I remember sitting off camera and watching it happen a couple of times, yeah.
BRIGER: I have a hard time believing the story, but it's been told many times, so...
TENNANT: Oh. Oh, come on. What's this?
BRIGER: (Laughter) Well, it's at the age of 3, you told your family that you wanted to be an actor because you wanted to play Doctor Who.
TENNANT: Which is the bit you find most implausible about that story? Because I have thoughts.
BRIGER: Well, first of all, just the wish fulfillment that you were able to achieve in your adulthood playing...
TENNANT: Yeah.
BRIGER: ...One of the most famous Doctor Whos. But also, like, did you, at the age of 3, understand that Doctor Who was an actor? Like, did you want to act as Doctor Who? Did you want to be Doctor Who?
TENNANT: This is the bit that now having had my own children I can think, 3, really? Could I have been 3? Because it does feel like quite a complicated thought process, doesn't it? But I can date it because, you know, this was in the times before home video recorders, so I know that I watched Jon Pertwee turn into Tom Baker on "Doctor Who." And I can date it, and it's 1974, so I was 3 years old. Maybe they repeated it like a year later, because sometimes they did that, so maybe I was 4. But I know that it was then, and I know that that led to a conversation with my parents. And you're absolutely right that it was a conversation where I learned what the difference between a character in a television program and an actor was. But in that moment, I understood what that concept was and decided that's what I wanted to do. So despite how implausible it seems, I know that it's true.
BRIGER: Do you remember what was so captivating about the show to you?
TENNANT: Something about that show and the combination of elements, certainly that central character, always fascinated me. I just thought he was brilliant. I just thought he was cool, he was clever. He was dressed in sort of brilliant, cool, mad clothes. But he looked like a normal human. And I think that was quite important to me as a fairly geeky young child. I didn't imagine I could ever aspire to be Superman or the Incredible Hulk. You know, I was sort of quite weedy, and I wore glasses, and I had a terrible haircut. So all those things still felt possible in the world of The Doctor. There was something about that character that I could be.
I also loved - it's a brilliantly constructed show in that you don't know where they're going to land each time. Every time the TARDIS lands, where is it? What's the mystery? There's a whole new set of characters to get. And the monsters - what's the monster going to be this week? What's going to come around that corner, and how scary is it going to be? And what a thrill all that was. So, no, I was obsessional about it.
BRIGER: So where I grew up, you couldn't just get "Doctor Who" on the 13 channels that we had.
TENNANT: Right.
BRIGER: But I don't know if televisions were the same in Scotland.
TENNANT: Well, you say 13 channels like you were starved.
BRIGER: No, I know (laughter).
TENNANT: I mean, school, I know, three channels.
BRIGER: Right.
TENNANT: We had three.
BRIGER: But there was this other dial where you could - it was kind of like a radio dial where you could dial in, like, farther television stations. And sometimes I could dial in, like, the out-of-state public television show that did have "Doctor Who." And the things that I remember about it was, first, that it was really scary. Like, the monsters were scary, and the theme music terrified me.
But then the thing that I also noticed was, like, sometimes I would notice how cheaply made the show was. Like, why are all these sci-fi, futuristic characters wearing clothes that look like they were borrowed from, like, "Masterpiece Theatre"? And then, in all of these science fiction or futuristic sets, there are always these drapes everywhere (laughter), like, blocking off sections of the stage. I don't know, so those were my early memories of it.
TENNANT: Listen, all of those memories are very accurate, I think. I don't think there's anything wrong with any of those observations you make. And I think I was aware of all that, too. But I still either forgave it or reveled in it, its shortcomings, because actually the writing, they were incredibly well-written. And those central performances - I remember Tom Baker, who played The Doctor through most of my early childhood. It was a really magnificent performance. He was a properly charismatic, mercurial, funny, funny, heroic. It was a brilliant performance as a piece of sort of mad acting. It was a wonder to behold, and that just scooped me up. How thrilling that you tuned in.
BRIGER: Yeah, to, like, a different planet (laughter).
TENNANT: You tuned your TV set to get - so it's like the illicit channels. It must've felt like you discovered wonderful secrets.
BRIGER: It did feel that way, definitely.
TENNANT: Yeah.
BRIGER: Well, let's hear you from "Doctor Who." This is from your first big scene. You've just been regenerated. This would happen. It's sort of like the character would be reincarnated, which was a convenient way to have new actors play this role. And so you're reintroducing yourself to your traveling companion played by Billie Piper and some other characters. And you're also surrounded by some pretty tough-looking aliens. Let's hear this.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DOCTOR WHO")
TENNANT: (As The Doctor) Now, first things first - be honest. How do I look?
BILLIE PIPER: (As Rose Tyler) Different.
TENNANT: (As The Doctor) Good different or bad different?
PIPER: (As Rose Tyler) Just different.
TENNANT: (As The Doctor) Am I ginger?
PIPER: (As Rose Tyler) No, you're just sort of brown.
TENNANT: (As The Doctor)Aw, I wanted to be ginger. I've never been ginger. And you, Rose Tyler, fat lot of good you were, you gave up on me. Oh, that's rude. Is that what I am now? Am I Rude? Rude and not ginger?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) If I might interrupt.
TENNANT: (As The Doctor) Yes. Sorry. Hello, big fella.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Who exactly are you?
TENNANT: (As The Doctor) Well, that's the question.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I demand to know who you are.
TENNANT: (As The Doctor) I don't know. See, that's the thing. I'm The Doctor, but beyond that, I just don't know. I literally do not know who I am. It's all untested. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy? Right old misery? Life and soul? Right handed? Left handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob.
BRIGER: That's our guest David Tennant as Doctor Who in his first big scene. So you're asking, like, who am I there. One of the things that I really liked about your portrayal of The Doctor was this, like, unbridled enthusiasm that you brought to the character. But, you know, here you are at this point. You've been classically trained. You went to the Royal Scottish Academy Of Music And Dance (ph). And now you're playing this important British pop figure. How did all of the things that you had learned and the ways that you've trained help you sort of embody this role?
TENNANT: Oh, it's a very good question. I don't know. I mean, it's one of those parts that has a lot of cultural baggage about it, but it also, the whole idea of regeneration where one actor takes over from the next, you're given a bit of a blank sheet. The Doctor has certain immovable truths about them, but you're not expected to do what the last one did. You're expected to bring your own version of it. You just have to find yourself in it, I suppose. You just have to kind of chuck yourself at it and see what you get. And, of course, it was written by Russell T. Davies, who's one of the great television writers of our time, and wrote it with sort of a bit like himself. I mean, Russell has a wonderful gift of the gab about him. He can talk, and he's funny and he's quick, and he's probably the cleverest person in most rooms. And that's kind of how he writes The Doctor.
So you just kind of look to plug into that energy, filter it through yourself and hope that that produces something that's kind of endearing and not smug and annoying. Probably some people did find it smug and annoying, but hopefully, most people found it charming and funny. I think it's important that The Doctor is funny because he uses wit to undermine some of the kind of worst creatures that the universe can throw at him. That's part of what's glorious about that character is that he can be funny in times of crisis. And that's his cool. He's very uncool in many ways, but he's got that swagger, that ability to undermine everything with a gag or with a twinkle. So I didn't ponder all that. It's quite interesting listening back to that through headphones now. It feels quite green and quite squeaky to me.
BRIGER: Well, it's pretty remarkable how much the show has given you. Again, like, it's sort of this great wish fulfilment. You also met your wife...
TENNANT: I did. I did.
BRIGER: Georgia, on the show. She actually...
TENNANT: Yeah.
BRIGER: ...Played your daughter in an episode.
TENNANT: Yes, but it's - listen, time is very relative when you're a Time Lord, and she's a little bit younger than me. She's not that much younger than me.
BRIGER: She's an adult character in the show.
TENNANT: She's an adult character, yes. Exactly.
BRIGER: And Georgia's father, your father-in-law, was a different incarnation of Doctor Who.
TENNANT: That's right. Yeah. He was number five. I mean, I watched him as a kid. He became The Doctor when I was about 11, so he was absolutely someone that I drew pictures of in sketchbooks, yeah. That has just added to how odd the whole thing is that I've ended up being part of this show that I grew up obsessed with.
BRIGER: Our guest is actor David Tennant. More after a short break, this is FRESH AIR.
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BRIGER: This is FRESH AIR. Our guest is actor David Tennant. The third season of his podcast, "David Tennant Does A Podcast With..." is now out.
You've also played a bunch of villains in your career, and one that particularly stays with me is the supervillain Kilgrave from the Marvel TV show "Jessica Jones," and Kilgrave basically can have people do whatever he wants. He can just command them. He abuses his ability in very sadistic ways, taking away consent from women, like, telling people, like, if I'm late, carve your face off. Like, and, you know, this character is charmless and, like, really repugnant. Can you talk about how you found a way to play him?
TENNANT: You have to just go back to what's written. And I think why "Jessica Jones" as a series worked so well is because Melissa Rosenberg, who was the showrunner, and her team of writers, did something really quite remarkable, I think. It was a superhero show. Jessica Jones is part of the Marvel Universe. The - Kilgrave was known in the comic books as the Purple Man, and he's a character who, in his first appearance, wears a purple jumpsuit. And it's entirely purple but has this ability that whatever he says, people have to obey him. So if he tells them to lie down on the street, they'll lie down in the street. You know, what could be quite a sort of simplistic, rather sort of schlocky comic book idea, in the hands of the writers that we had became, as you have hinted, it became a story about consent, and it became a story about emotional abuse and psychological abuse.
But it was also looking into what had caused Kilgrave to be this way. And if you had that ability, what would that do to your own psychology? So yes, he's a monster, and he does awful things, and there's nothing - there's very little redeemable about him. But I think we were also let in to understand that, with that ability all his life, how could he not be damaged by that? When he doesn't know if somebody does something because they want to or because he's told them to, how could he interact as a rational human being with anyone? And I think that was all there in the writing.
So they created something really quite adult, quite difficult at times, quite complicated, but also manages, whilst absolutely being a superhero show, it manages not to be blithe or glib about any of the things that it examines. And it's quite a tough watch at times. But I just felt very lucky that I ended up in that Marvel show because I think it really was an extraordinary piece of work. And that, - you know, I was just a tiny part of that.
BRIGER: When you're playing these roles that are, like, terrible people, like real-life serial killers or these villains, like, do you have to sort of, like, shrug them off at the end of the day or else you'll take them home with you?
TENNANT: Not really. Not consciously. I think when I put the script down, I sort of - I leave it at work. But you'd probably have to ask Georgia. I mean, you probably have to ask the people that have to live...
BRIGER: Right, to live with you.
TENNANT: ...Through a project with you.
BRIGER: Yeah.
TENNANT: Yeah. Yeah. Because I suppose things do sometimes kind of go in funny direction. There have been a couple of times when Georgia said, oh, I'm glad that's over. I didn't always like that version of you that you brought home. I mean, I don't come home as Kilgrave, but I suppose, you know, there is an element of - it's all pretend, but if you're pretending particularly dark stuff, you are sort of trying to trick your brain into behaving in the ways that you might behave if certain awful things were happening. And that probably does have something of a cost on your real life. But I've never felt it weighing particularly heavily, I don't think. But as I say, it's probably - that's probably a sort of side interview with Georgia. Yeah. Yeah.
BRIGER: In the show "Staged," Michael Sheen is often sort of poking fun a little bit of you being Scottish, and you guys talk about haggis and - are there sort of stereotypical things about being a Scot that you sort of lean into, besides wearing a kilt?
TENNANT: It's funny. When I lived in Scotland, I had no interest in being Scottish, maybe because it was so ubiquitous. But when you're not there anymore, you do become a sort of unofficial ambassador for all things Scottish. And I do enjoy that greatly. I do love a bit of haggis. And it's - yeah, there's - of course there's something self-consciously pleasing about wearing a kilt at the BAFTAs and holding on to a bit of Scottishness. And I'm sort of now patriotic and proud of Scotland in a way that I never really appreciated when I was there. Yeah, I love being Scottish. It's great. It gives you a calling card. It gives you a sense of self, for sure.
BRIGER: Well, David Tennant, it's been a real pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for coming on FRESH AIR.
TENNANT: Thanks for having me. It's been an absolute delight.
GROSS: David Tennant spoke with FRESH AIR'S Sam Briger. Tennant's podcast, called "David Tennant Does A Podcast With…" is now in its third season.
After we take a short break, our TV critic David Bianculli, will review the new series "Dying For Sex," starring Michelle Williams. This is FRESH AIR.
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