Jenna Coleman: “You’re in Doctor Who knowing it will never last”
Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman reveal the secrets of their successful partnership as Doctor Who returns to BBC1
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They’ve both had interesting careers. He was brought up in Glasgow where his parents, of Italian extraction, were in the ice-cream business. At school he was mocked and called “Moon Man”, which still seems to rankle. “It was the Apollo landings and I spent my entire life writ- ing letters to Nasa who sent pictures to me. I was a geek before the word was invented.” He wrote to Radio Times aged 15, in 1974, praising the magazine for its coverage of Doctor Who before he developed less cerebral interests two years later and became lead singer in a punk band, the Dreamboys, originally the B*****ds from Hell.
“I was at arts school. Everyone picked up guitars and we had a lot of fun playing gigs.” Craig Ferguson, now a leading US talk show host, was their drummer. He introduced Capaldi earlier this year as the only guest “I’ve taken acid with”. Capaldi smiles sheepishly. “Craig is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, a natural comedian. Coleman veers the conversation onto a safer topic. “You’re in a museum in Paisley. I have pictures of you, with the band.”
He looks at once mortified, surprised and pleased. He’s also become a sex symbol. “Unbelievable,” he says. “When you’re famous, people say things about you. I’m the same person I was when I wasn’t a sex symbol. Fame is such a privilege and any downside is a small price to pay. It’s slightly different, though, because people think they’re meeting Doctor Who, an icon, and not me.”
“I get that directed at me, too,” she says. “It’s recognition associated with a show that people like, which is nice.”
He failed his first interview for drama school. “I was dreadful, but then I got lucky. I knew nothing about acting – my family went to pantomime at Christmas, and that was it – but I thought it would be good fun because I liked watching telly. I came to London at 17 and the whole thing was terrifying. I moved into a world that was utterly different.” At 25 he returned to his flat “a wee bit drunk”, where his landlady, a costume designer, was talking to film director Bill Forsyth, who cast him as an amiable geek in the highly successful Local Hero.
A few years later Capaldi directed a comic film for BBC Scotland, Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life, which won a Bafta and an Oscar for best live action short film in 1995. “I only did it to explore my creativity, then everyone said, ‘Are you going to be a film director?’ which I didn’t want to be. I have an arts school background, so my ethos is: you have a go at everything and if you keep your eyes open and are lucky, you learn. Sometimes you’re good, sometimes not. I shiver when I recall how arrogantly I behaved, but I was probably just stupid. When you’re young, you are stupid – apart from you, Jenna.”
“Thank you,” she smiles.
After success, failure – a few weeks after winning his Oscar he was back directing a dog-food commercial in a Rickmansworth field. “All actors go through ups and downs and walk in the deep shadow of failure. I like to talk about it, unlike most who think it somehow means you’re not successful. My failures taught me more than any success and made me wise. There are profound things I won’t go into. Working with others, I learnt to rely on myself. There are a lot of high priests, Aztecs, in this business, who profess to have the answers. When you realise they don’t, it’s a remarkable feeling.” He was on the verge of packing up acting and selling the family home in north London after being out of work for a year before The Thick of It came along in 2005.
