I am – Hercules!!
SciFi refuses to demean the great American Thanksgiving weekend by transmitting a new episode of “Doctor Who” (or “Battlestar Galactica”) but – fear not - this does not preclude Gaspode from slapping together a new “Doctor Who” column. Behold!
David Tennant and Billie Piper discuss Doctor Who: Season Two
[Okay, since Doctor Who is being preempted on Sci-Fi this week for the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I would post something a bit different, namely the press conference that ‘Who’ actors David Tennant and Billie Piper gave in Cardiff several months back to promote season two. While some die-hards have no doubt already read bits of it that ran in the various British genre mags at the time, I think it’s interesting to look back on some of the comments in hindsight, particularly Piper’s claim that she was staying with the series. What knew one knew at the time is that the actress, like Christopher Eccleston the previous season, had already moved on from Doctor Who by the time she was speaking to the press. Makes you wonder what’s going to happen at the season three launch this coming spring…]
Question: What is it like working together?
David Tennant: It’s a nightmare. It’s very difficult. Her flatulence is a big problem.
Billie Piper: It really is.
Tennant: We have had a really good laugh.
Piper: Fortunately we get on, so we’ve had a laugh. You need to really, because it’s nine months and it’s quite intense and endless 13-hour days, where you’re thrown together all the time, so I feel I’ve made a friend for life.
Tennant: I hope so, yeah. It is weird, because we’re the only two constants. Usually on a drama, there’s a bunch of you that go through the whole thing together, and Noel [Clarke] and Camille [Coduri] come in and out and it’s always great to see them, but Billie’s the only person I know I’m going to see every day.
Piper: I see you more than I see my boyfriend, and that’s fine by me.
Tennant: Luckily we get on, and we’ve had a really good time.
In episode one [‘New Earth’], you’re quite a posh bad girl, aren’t you?
Piper: Yeah, it was fun. Actually I was quite nervous, because it’s quite a departure from Rose, and it was the first time in Doctor Who where I played quite a lot of comedy, so I was quite scared, but I think it works okay. I like it; it’s fun, and I hope to play many more posh bad girls.
Have you had any contact with the fans?
Tennant: You know, just the other day, somebody sent me a Tom Baker scarf, knitted to perfection, and all the colors looked right to me as well.
Piper: Well, you would know!
Tennant: That was quite weird, but lovely that someone would sit down and did that, every stitch.
Piper: We were filming in Cardiff recently and we got these little Dalek cakes from one of the residents on the street that we were filming- not full size, although I wish they had been, because frankly they were amazing.
Tennant: Mine was minty. Every one was a slightly different flavor.
What is like working with David as opposed to Christopher Eccleston?
Piper: Well, they’re different people. Chris and David are very different, and they’re equally as nice and a lot of fun, so it’s fine. I think you just get on with it. I think I am different as Rose when I’m playing opposite David, and I think it’s a different kind of energy.
Tennant: But then Rose is growing up as well, isn’t she?
Piper: Rose is growing up. She’s 20 this year, and I think she’s grown in leaps and bounds since the first series. She’s a lot more proactive and she saves the day quite a few times. It’s just a natural progression really, and it’s worked out really nicely.
Tennant: Rose’s family is a big [addition] to the whole of the second season.
Piper: It’s quite domestic actually; maybe as domestic is not more this year, and also we get to travel with Mickey as well, which again throws the dynamic into a different place, so it’s fine, it’s great.
What was your first scene together?
Tennant: It was at the end of the Christmas special. It’s when I tell Harriet Jones to go and stuff herself.
Piper: Oh yeah, we were just off the M4 weren’t we? I remember that, because we were in London. If you want the details, as you come in off the M4 and you see the Lucosade sign on the left, it was just on the right. I know, because I like that sign.
What is the difference between kissing David and Christopher?
Piper: How do they compare? Oh, I don’t know. They’re just different men. I don’t know how to answer that really. I had a longer kiss with you, which I really enjoyed.
Tennant: You were more proactive in this kiss weren’t you? You were making it happen.
Piper: Yeah, it was quite sexy. It was fun.
How are you similar to your characters?
Tennant: I’m 950 years old; that’s the biggest similarity.
Piper: And you’ve got two hearts, so there’s a lot of love there! I think I’m quite ballsy like Rose. I like a bit of a gamble, and that’s something I tapped into when I first read the scripts and that’s what made me want to go to the audition: I like people like that. Would I ever wear her clothes? No.
Tennant: You’ve got some nice gear!
Piper: This year I’ve got some good clothes, but it’s not my style, it’s Rose’s style.
Would you like to see the Doctor’s and Rose’s relationship become more romantic?
Piper: No. I like it that you can’t put your finger on it.
Tennant: Yeah. [laughter] I think it’s like all these relationships, like Mulder and Scully and Moonlighting. Moonlighting jumped the shark when they got together, didn’t it? I think you have to be very careful, which doesn’t mean to say that we don’t see the relationship developing and becoming something that it maybe hasn’t been before, but I think you have to be very careful with those things.
Piper: You want it to happen, but at the same time, you don’t want it to happen. It’s one of those weird things, like Ross and Rachel: you want them to get it back on, but then you don’t have the anticipation. It’s something like that.
Is either of you going to appear in Torchwood?
Piper: I don’t know.
Tennant: I don’t think that’s on the cards. Torchwood is a separate thing, apart from Captain Jack.
Piper: And Eve Myles.
Tennant: Yeah, but she’s playing somebody else so that doesn’t count.
What is like working with Peter Kay?
Piper: Hard work, just because you can’t stop laughing.
Tennant: Hard work, because he channels funny.
Piper: You just look at him and you laugh. That’s not going to sound very nice! He’s funny and you’ve seen him on the telly and his stand-up and you think, ‘I can’t believe I’m working with you!’ It’s so exciting. And he does his gags as well.
Tennant: He’s a funny guy.
[To Piper] Are you surprised by the ‘cutting-edge’ label given to you by people like Germaine Greer?
Tennant: What did Germaine Greer say about you?
Piper: I don’t know. [A follow-up question about becoming a star] It’s very cool, it’s an exciting time for me to be alive, and I’m doing what I wanted to do since I was a kid, and that means so much to me, and being here tonight and watching it, I just can’t quite believe it’s all happened. I’m really loving it and want to do it for years, so all of those things are just a bonus really. The fact hat I’m working every day as an actress makes me really happy.
Are you staying with the show?
Piper: Yes, I’m sticking with the Who.
What about a feature?
Tennant: I don’t think you know until it’s written.
Piper: And also, it’s hard to think about it, because we’re so in the midst of everything that’s going on at the moment, it’s hard to consider a feature I think, but scripts are welcome. I don’t know, I don’t really have a plan. Maybe I should have, but I don’t. Do you?
Tennant: No, I’ve never done that, like in three year’s time I have to be starring in X.’
Piper: Life changes so much all the time…
Tennant: You can’t know, and I think you’re only going to frustrate yourself thinking that way. I think we’ve both been very lucky. We’ve had some fantastic scripts that just come your way and you just hope that will continue to happen.
Piper: So far it’s been brilliant. We were just saying downstairs that some of the telly in the UK at the moment is so brilliant, and there’s so much going on that it’s a really exciting time to be working as a TV actor, so that’s great.
[To Tennant] What about your accent?
Tennant: It was what Russell had schemed really. There was an idea that the Doctor would imprint on Rose like a newly hatched chick. He would adopt Rose’s way of speaking, and this was all explained in the Christmas special.
Piper: And we never filmed it.
Tennant: It never got made. We ran out of time, so we’re just left with it now. I don’t know, it’s how Russell wanted to take the show, and it’s how he wanted the Doctor to be.
Piper: It would be too much of a [inaudible] if you got everyone speaking in their own accents.
Tennant: Yeah, I think that would be the other danger. Because Chris so brilliantly reinvented it by being northern and being unashamed about that, it could have got a bit too [in the regions?] so you’d probably have to ask Russell what the thinking was.
You eventually get to use your own Scottish accent?
Tennant: Well we do end up in Scotland, and the Doctor being an incorrigible showoff of course, shows off that he can do the accent, which luckily…
When did you stop feeling like the new person?
Tennant: Well, you feel like the new boy until you start, because there was months of build-up and months of waiting for it to start and months of people speculating about it and asking you about it, and asking what you’re going to be like and what you’re going to be wearing, and you don’t know. That was when it felt most difficult. But then from day one, partly because day one starts and you’ve got to learn your lines and get on and do the scene, you’ve just got to do the job, and partly because of Bill and everyone else being so welcoming and being so open and generous, they never made me feel like the new boy. And once you got cracking at it, you just have to get on with it, so that’s when it stops.
You’re a big fan of the show, aren’t you?
Tennant: It’s a relative term, isn’t it?
Piper: Ask him anything, go on! I love this game!
Tennant: I’ve got a couple of DVDs at home.
Piper: (Sarcastically) Yeah, one or two!
Tennant: Russell is much better than I am. Russell is on a while level deeper than I am, and there’s Phil Collinson, who keeps it a bit quiet, but he’s right down in there! He knows it backwards. I thought I was good, and then you meet people like [writer] Steven Moffat!
Could you talk a little bit about the episode School Reunion?
Tennant: It’s interesting how the episode works, I think, because if you know about Sarah Jane Smith, you kind of watch the episode from the point of view of the Doctor, and if you are younger or don’t know that Lis Sladen was in the show before, you watch it through Rose and funnily enough, that was reflected in our own experiences of it, because I grew up watching Lis in the show but Billie is a little bit younger than me so she didn’t.
Piper: I knew who she was. The hair gave it away. Lis has got amazing hair. And amazing legs! She’s hot!
Tennant: She is quite hot. Again, what’s clever about the way the writers approach this show is that they make nods to the past, but they don’t exclude anyone who wasn’t there, and I think that episode is a real testament to the way that’s been handled.
Billie: And it’s funny. We have a great bitch fight, and we’re just waiting to go at each other, and we’re both quite jealous and find it quite hard to cope with, but it’s very sweet and in the end, Rose actually asks questions about what it was like being with the Doctor and should she stay on as a companion and is she going to be burnt or is she going to be left behind, so she confides in her so that was nice to play.
Is there a certain level of life imitating art with a younger actress?
Piper: I suppose it does, really. It’s quite philosophical.
Tennant: It’s part of life, isn’t it? Again, what’s clever about the way the show works is it exists on several level. It’s an adventure story, but it also goes to some quite interesting emotional places as well and Russell doesn’t shy away from that. I think that’s what gives it that extra texture.
Do you sit down with the other SF videos and DVD?
Piper: We haven’t had time! The thing is, we’re dealing with what’s going on at the moment, and we have to, because every day is full-on and every day you have to concentrate and commit, so that’s enough for me to cope with at the moment. And Rose doesn’t know, so that works quite nicely. Talk about convenience! But I have learned bits and bobs. The fans have taught me quite a lot actually. What’s funny is, I didn’t really understand SF before I started Doctor Who. I just didn’t really get it, and now I’m loving it more and more, so I think the fact that I understand the concept that is sci-fi, that’s a good place to be, and then I’ll start exploring the past and what’s been before.
What do you do to let off steam?
Tennant: You just kind of collapse at the weekend really.
Piper: You hang around your flat a lot and go to Tesco buying pasta. I don’t know, I just sit on the sofa for two days and don’t really do that much.
Tennant: They’re such long days. We’re both up tomorrow at 6:00 and we’ll be there until 8:00 at night or whatever it is, and you go home and learn your lines for the next day, so come the weekend, you don’t have a lot of energy.
Piper: I don’t want to talk to anyone at the weekends. I like to sit in my flat and be completely selfish, watch TV, eat far too much food, drink some beer. Sounds good actually!
Which gadget would change your lives immeasurably for the better?
Tennant: Ending on an easy one then!
Piper: I know: a Swiss army knife. Those things are good!
Tennant: What would you use it for?
Piper: Everything! Have you seen those things?
Tennant: You’d use the bottle opener once in a while; that’s it!
Piper: These new ones have an I-Pod; everything. I could do with one of those actually.
Tennant: I could do with a new kitchen table; does that count? I broke my kitchen table.
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