Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor best known for playing the Doctor in Doctor Who and Prince Philip in The Crown.
On the island
Eight records
Oasis is my heart and there was a battle for number one and my mum had like an old tape cassette thing and it was when the top ten actually mattered and we got to two and it was roll with it and I was gutted and blur country house was number one but my first song is Oasis, the greatest rock and roll band in the world and it's roll with it.
The Great Gig in the SkyFavourite
We would go up to Nottingham and on the way up we'd listen to an Oasis album or an album of my choice but on the way back we'd listened to one of his and it was often Sergeant Pepper's. ... And he like used to let me open the sunroof and put the heaters on, which sounds like quite a stupid thing, but I used to love it for some reason. And then this song particularly, I always just thought, what the hell is that? And I just, you know, I owe this album and I owe Pink Floyd to my old man.
I sort of wanted to play a soul song and I listened to this a lot in Brazil. And I sort of fell in love with Brazil. And my mum got me into Motown and soul music.
Paul van Dyk featuring Rachel McFarlane
It was because about 18 or 19 I got into decks and music and stuff and particularly garage and house and trance and dance music. And I'd go to this record shop called Spinner Disc and spend like 12 quid on a white label record. And I used to love it. And this is one I bought back in the day.
Arcade Fire was such a huge banner for me in London when I was young and I was an actor around about this time ... I came out the hotel [in Chicago] ... There was a big silver bus there ... the woman came up to me ... she said, I'm their manager. Do you want to come and see him tonight? ... And then she says, do you want to go on stage for the finale? ... So that night, me and Lil's went and we watched Arcade Fire. And then at the end, we went on stage, went and met them. And then they're like, we're playing in Toronto next week. So we changed all our plans. We drove to Toronto and we watched them again there and did the same thing twice.
Had to have a rap song from 11 or 12 and my other best mate Bondi, me and him did just all rap. My two favourite rappers are Nas and Biggie. It was a toss-up. And this is quite a commercial Biggie tune. ... I read somewhere that when Seamus Heaney was on his deathbed ... they asked him who his favourite modern poet was and he said Eminem. And I think it's about rhythm. And weirdly, that's what made me quite good at learning lines and quite good at doing it quickly, is that I learned them rhythmically. And I would literally rap them.
It was Italia 1990, and I think this is the first time that my imagination was really madly sort of stimulated by music, Nessun Dorma. By [Puccini].
I've gone for LCD Sound System, all my friends, because I saw them recently and there was a touch of the Cantona about it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:22How did you do that physical thing [of becoming Prince Philip]?
Great wig. And you know, you watch and you kind of pay attention to as much video footage and you read as much and you immerse yourself in the history and the context and the world of those people. For me, there's usually a physical thing, one physical thing, and one vocal thing that I just repeat, repeat, repeat. And for him, he had his hands behind his back, so I would always walk with my hands behind my back.
Presenter asks
4:04What was your reaction when you found out that Jodie Whitaker was going to be the first female Doctor Who?
I phoned up my great friend Piers Wenger ... he said, okay, I'll tell you. And then it'd be nice if you rang her and you know, said good luck and stuff. So he told me. ... I think it's a brilliant choice because I think that show, a bit like Shakespeare actually, sort of relies on big, broad, creative brushstrokes, you know. ... I rang her, but she wasn't there. So I just sang the Doctor Who theme tune once. And I said nothing else.
Presenter asks
8:08What were you like as a little boy?
Quite bizarre as a child. I had a speech impediment and I had all these like habits and I sort of broke out of them ... I used to blink a lot. I was quite twitchy, but I was good at football, so that gave me something. I think now I'd be diagnosed with like ADHD or something. But I was happy, you know, because I had great parents and great friends.
The keepsakes
The book
Ted Hughes
I'm going to go with Ted Hughes because I love Ted Hughes. He's my favourite poet and I think I can return to it more.
The luxury
Presenter asks
12:55What was the sensation when you were on the pitch [playing football] and expressing yourself in that way?
Well, it was without fear. I mean all I did was play football ten hours a day. And it sort of came easily, I suppose, and it came very naturally. And I liked sort of learning about it. And also, I just think the drama of sport always appealed to me.
Presenter asks
19:44What do you make now of Mr Hardingham [the drama teacher who spotted you]?
It changed my life. He sat me down and said you should apply for the [National Youth Theatre] ... he filled in the forms with me and I did that and then that was the next big catalyst in my journey as an actor. That changed my whole life really and he's been to see every play I've ever done.
Presenter asks
36:28How did you make the choice to go from Doctor Who to a musical of American Psycho?
I made it reluctantly as I make every choice really ... I made it 'cause I'd never done a musical. I've always wanted to play a serial killer. ... I quite like finding characters that are really difficult. So with that musical, if by the end people can go, God, I feel a bit sorry for him. And there was something in that challenge that I loved and the singing and the music was really good.
“My old man, he's a legend, he's the greatest influence on my life, bar none. I kind of often think all of my truest moments as an actor are somehow impersonations of him, if that makes sense.”
“When Sergio Aguero scores against QPR on the last day of the season, and Martin Tyler goes, Aguero! Or if you're an Olympic athlete and you've been training for four years to lose by a hair, that sort of thing. And I would dream about football a lot. I was imagining myself doing well. I was imagining myself as the best. I suppose that's the thing.”
“When you take on that part [the Doctor], you're taking on a sort of headboyness.”
“Sophia [Myles], she probably won't even remember this. This was in the second episode [of Doctor Who]. She said to me, you've got to lead this show. When someone comes in, you are the front point. And then after that, you know, I really made it a point. So any actor that would come in, I'd go and I'd knock on the door and I made it my position to make people welcome and make people feel, you know, that they belonged quite quickly.”
“And that bit of life, that transaction [Pavarotti's performance]. It's such a wonderful moment to share with a performer.”
“It's either I'm either, for want of a better sort of analogy, at A or at Z. I'm either in complete and utter head boy focus mode or in sort of complete chaos. And anything in between, I'm sort of not really interested in.”