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David Tennant interview - Radio Times, December 2005 |
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Prior to his debut in Doctor Who, David Tennant chatted to E Jane Dickson about childhood ambition, becoming a sex symbol and the pitfalls of fame.
On his desire to be an actor
"I've always
been preposterously single-minded
about my career. I was three years old
when I decided I wanted to be an
actor. I just loved watching people on
the telly. I was watching stories being
told and thinking 'this is just great'.
I think I had a conversation with my
parents about who these people were
in the TV and as soon as I had an
understanding that this was a job,
that people got paid for telling stories,
that was what I wanted to do."
On Casanova
"Of the kind of parts I've ended up
playing, very few have required
great physical prowess. Casanova is the closest
I've come to somebody who has to
look good, but that particular
Casanova didn't have to be an Adonis,
he was more of a cheeky chappie."
"Nobody ever
suggested that I must or should, but
I thought I'd feel more confident in
the role if I was feeling
more confident physically,
so I worked out every
single day for five weeks.
And then I didn't get to
take my shirt off until
week ten of filming, by which time it
had all gone to pot."
On politics
"When I started
working in theatre in England, I would meet people, and
they would say 'Oh, I voted for
Margaret Thatcher.' The first time I
heard someone saying that, I honestly
thought they were joking. I'd be
thinking, 'I have never met anyone
from your world. What's it like? Do
you roast children over open fires?'"
"I know I shouldn't say this, but I still find it impossible
to believe that anyone in the arts
votes Conservative. I want to say: 'But
you spend your life doing stuff about
the human condition. How can you be
in a production of, say, King Lear, and
vote Tory. Did you not understand it?
Or did you just not like it? And if you
think Shakespeare got the whole
thing wrong, how can you square
what you're doing with yourself ?'"
On fronting a cause
"You've got to be careful
you're not whacking your name onto
the cause of the week just because
it's voguish. But it's difficult because
as soon as you get any kind of profile,
the letters just don't stop. You could
be a patron of 152 charities in a
fortnight.
"And it's a hard line to draw,
because in one way, what right have
you to tell anyone anything, other
than that they recognise your face.
In another way you think, 'Well, if I
have the ability to make a difference,
simply by virtue of being who I am at
this moment, then do I have the right
to ignore that?' If I can put my face to
a good cause and raise 50 quid for it,
shouldn't I just do it and shut up? It's
something I'm still figuring out."
On being cast in Doctor Who
"I love Doctor Who, but I never expected to be
considered for the part. What's lovely,
is that the public seem to have thought,
'yeah, he'll do'."
**
Read our 2007 interview with David Tennant - or take a look at our full Doctor Who guide.
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