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Russell T Davies and Billie Piper on Rose Tyler in Doctor Who - Radio Times, June 2008 |
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Doctor Who's Russell T Davies and Billie Piper talk to Radio Times about Rose Tyler on the eve of her return to the show.
"The Doctor and Rose just complete each other," says Davies. "She had a humdrum life, with horizons no further than the chip shop, and he showed her the universe. She'd been so fiercely loyal to her mum, Jackie, and her boyfriend, Mickey, that she'd rarely looked beyond the confines of her council estate. Life with the Doctor allowed her to unlock all the passion and adventure inside her, though my favourite thing about Rose is that she was never a saint. She always kept a fantastic, ruthless, selfish streak at heart, which helped her to survive and never give up.
"At the same time, the Doctor was damaged and scarred, after the Time War, and Rose taught him compassion again. She took the Doctor from being an introverted loner, who'd run away from any contact with her family, to the man who sat down and had Christmas dinner with Jackie and Mickey. In a way, she healed him, and made the Tenth Doctor out of the Ninth, which forged an incredible bond between them."
But is it love? "It's certainly some sort of love," replies Davies, "but sometimes I think this gets massively overstated. If you look at all the lovey-dovey dialogue between them, over two years and 27 episodes, it amounted to three slight hints and no proper kisses." Hang on, their lips locked twice! "But one was a vortex transfer," insists Davies, "and the other a body swap! Not what I'd call kisses."
At the end of Series Two, when the Doctor left her on Bad Wolf Bay, in a parallel universe, Rose told him that she loved him. Before he'd finished his reply, he was cut off. Will we ever find out what the Doctor was going to say? "Maybe," grins Davies, "in this year's series finale. That conversation on Bad Wolf Bay has yet to be resolved, but it's by no means forgotten."
The Doctor must have missed Rose enormously? "Just wait till you see his face, when he claps eyes on her again! She was always very special to him, but I don't think he realises how much until he learns of her return." This time around, Rose is "tougher, more independent, and might, at times, seem a little harder," but underneath that, stresses Davies, "it's still the same Rose Tyler. I didn't bring her back in order to reinvent her!"
Rose's defining scene
"A lot of people would choose the Bad Wolf Bay scene, but for me it's the scene in The Satan Pit where Rose thinks that the Doctor is dead, ten miles below the planet's surface, with no means of reaching him, and the whole planet is about to fall into a black hole, the murderous Ood are on the rampage…but still she won't leave. The spaceship is about to depart, but she won't abandon the Doctor. She's both selfish and selfless in the same moment. It's the most beautiful, heart-wrenching performance from Billie."
Billie Piper on Rose
"The Doctor has turned her life on its head for the better. She found this person who has made her celebrate life and humanity and said 'Look it's great, you should have this zest for life because here are the reasons why it's great'. Sometimes you need someone to shake you and stop you in your tracks and make you look at what's going on around you and make you want to be a better person…Rose and the Doctor teach each other. She's quite closed off from the world, but she could, potentially, be someone brilliant. He shows her how to do that. And equally, she shows him how to be sympathetic, how to have morals and show and express his emotions. It's a really interesting dynamic."
Find out more about how Russell T Davies sees the companions - and what the women who play them think too:
Read what Russell thinks about the role of companions in Doctor Who
Russell T Davies and Freema Agyeman on Martha
Catherine Tate and Russell T Davies on the evolution of Donna
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Now take a look at our full Doctor Who guide.
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