Lucifer at 10: Tom Ellis breaks down beloved show's devoted fanbase, survival skills, and enduring legacy

“Heeeeeeellllo…. Tell me, what is it you truly desire?”

With a devilish grin and twinkle in his eye, the world was introduced to Lucifer back in January 2016. Missing the horns, fire and brimstone typically associated with the ruler of Hell, this devil came immaculately dressed in a razor-sharp suit, soundtracked to Cage the Elephant’s Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked, while speeding through Los Angeles in a slick, 1962 Chevrolet Corvette.

In less than a minute, Tom Ellis, who plays the titular character, establishes this version of the Devil as fun and mischievous, with viewers in for a good time.

10 years on, Lucifer Morningstar has become the most defining character of Ellis’s career, and he holds it like a badge of honour, with the show’s apt enduring legacy becoming that of the power of a devoted fanbase, having a little faith, and resurrection.

“I can't believe it,” he says. “I mean, it feels like it's been around forever, and at the same time, I can't believe it's only 10 years since we started. I remember the whole experience pretty vividly.”

The Devil’s In The Details

Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Ellis acknowledges Lucifer was an opportunity that almost passed him by. Before being cast, his heart’s desire was somewhere else entirely.

“I’d read this Sarah Silverman pilot HBO was doing, and I was dead set: That's what I wanted to do,” he explains. “I remember they'd told me I was a bit young for it, but I was like, ‘just get me in a room with Sarah’.

“I flew to New York, met Sarah, went through this whole audition process with her, had a great time… then I got a call later, saying she thinks you're too young for it.”

“At the airport I had several scripts to look at for the next potential thing, and I pulled this script out with ‘Lucifer’ on the front,” he adds. “I thought, ‘Jesus, here we go, what's this load of old rubbish I'm about to open?’

“But by about the third page I'd laughed out loud several times, and was like, ‘Oh my God, I think this might be the guy.’”

Condemned to rule Hell for all eternity, this version of Lucifer Morningstar – sick of getting the blame for humanity’s bad decisions – decides to take a break on Earth. Becoming the primo Lothario of the LA club scene, he finds new purpose when he becomes a consultant for the LAPD.

Ellis shaped the character in his head quickly, picturing Lucifer as “Oscar Wilde and Mick Jagger's love child”. It was his decision to maintain his accent and make him British – something not noted in the original script.

“It just sort of screamed off the page to me that that's how it should be,” he says. “I did actually try it American [before the audition], but to be honest with you, as an American, he sounded like a complete d**k.

“There was something that was excusable, his behaviour and his attitude, if they were wrapped up in this charming British character. I think that's what the Americans went for. You can get away with a lot if you've got a British accent over here!”

He carried this through to the audition with executive producer Len Wiseman, who took a shine to Ellis in the leading role. “He got my number off a friend and basically said, ‘Look, I really want you to do this. I just need to convince the studio and the network you're the guy’.”

At the time, Ellis was still building his career in the States. While in the UK he was known for roles including love interest Gary in BBC’s Miranda, the US was proving a little harder to crack.

Prior to Lucifer, Ellis had his first major break leading a TV series with Rush – playing a shady LA doctor with a drug habit who serviced the Hollywood elite. It was cancelled in 2015 after one season, something Ellis admits his disappointment in, though he credits it for paving the way to his most notable role.

Ellis says getting Lucifer felt like “kismet”. While a successful audition may not exactly scream divine intervention alone, it was the start of a growing pattern of things working in the show’s favour to become what it was.

But it wasn’t without a fight. Before Lucifer was even released, the idea of attempting to redeem the devil felt like a tall order – with Christian “decency advocacy group” One Million Moms taking exception to the show before a single episode aired.

“They hadn't seen it. But that's the thing, when people haven't seen something and try to speak about it, it says more about those people than it does about the show,” Ellis notes, adding any kind of furore fizzled out quickly upon launch.

Save Lucifer

Made by Warner Bros for US network Fox, Lucifer ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2018 – and the team thought that would be it. By Ellis’s own admission, in the States the series ratings were “doing OK, but didn’t blow it out the gates”. Overseas though, was a different story.

“Warner Brothers arranged a bit of a press tour in Europe, because after season 1 had come out, it dropped on Amazon and Netflix in a few places in Europe,” he says.

“People were just losing their s**t about Lucifer, and I was thinking to myself, ‘this show feels way more popular than what I think it is’. I've been acting for a long time now, and that's the first time it started to feel like something was really popular and in multiple places.

“After season 3 when Fox cancelled the show, I thought to myself, ‘This is so strange, it feels really popular, I don't know why they're cancelling it, and I think there's going to be some people that aren't very happy about this’.

“That was the understatement of the year. That feeling I had was completely vindicated by the response.”

Gigantic fan outcry and a #SaveLucifer campaign picked up so much steam online it couldn’t be ignored, and after just two weeks of fighting from devoted “Lucifans”, Netflix brought the show back to life.

“It was really surreal, because I'd been told categorically by the head of Warner Bros that if Fox didn't pick up the show that would be it,” Ellis says. “So when it was cancelled, we were all pretty devastated because we really loved doing it, and we felt like people were really enjoying it.

“It was kind of indicating and lovely that we'd had this impact on people. That's where it started, and then it just started to snowball. I think probably maybe four or five days after the announcement of the cancellation, I had a call from the head of Warner Bros, who had previously told me that was it for the show, to say ‘we've noticed what's going on, and we're going to try and see if we can find a new home for it’.

“There was a bit of new life breathed into me after that. I still felt like it would be nice if it happened, but it's highly unlikely it will, but I felt encouraged by that so I went online and said to people, ‘just keep making noise’.”

“It was such a crazy time. It was so affirming and lovely and proactive, and it felt like people power,” he says. “It felt like good things could happen, which isn’t a common occurrence these days! It really cemented my belief in gut feeling and in fandom, I suppose.

“And it's really amazing because once it went to Netflix and we had created such a storm, when the new season came out, it was a totally different experience. It boomed. It was bonkers.”

Response remained so strong a fifth season was greenlit, and then extended, with a second batch of episodes added to what had already been announced as the final run. When love for the show endured, Netflix made a rare public backtrack, giving Lucifer a sixth – and definitively last – season, which brought the show to a close in 2021.

The God Squad

Lucifer proved to have an endurance few shows have managed to survive, with the ‘case-of-the-week’ series thriving amid the chaos it had unwittingly unleashed as showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Modrovich folded more characters, celestial beings and humans into the world.

While we were introduced to Lucifer first and foremost, fans attached themselves to the strong ensemble cast that filled the character’s life on Earth – Mazikeen (Lesley-Ann Brandt), Lucifer’s demon bestie who joined him in LA; Amenadiel (DB Woodside), Lucifer’s brother who was urged by God to get him back to his position in Hell; Detective Dan Espinoza (Kevin Alejandro), who found himself wary of this outlandish consultant; and Dr Linda Martin (Rachael Harris), a therapist with the devil himself as a client.

But the most important was undoubtedly Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German), a woman who would prove to be the love of Lucifer’s life. “Deckerstar” shippers soon dominated the conversation, with the will-they/won’t-they pull becoming central to the story.

Ellis regards German as “possibly one of the funniest people he’s ever met in his life”, which made navigating the story, and fan dedication, easier.

“I think when they [the fans] let it be known that this was a big thing for them, it really cemented for Joe and Ildy that that is the focal point,” he says. “I don't think it was ever thought to be the intention when it was first conceived that's where it would go to. But in terms of handling it, Lauren and I, we just had fun working together – and the rest of the cast really, we all were having a great time doing it.

“We bought into it as actors and characters in the show, for sure, and felt like this is the important stuff that we needed to nail.”

Resting in Peace

By the time the show reached its finale, Ellis – now also a producer – and the team knew they had to stick the landing. Which is easier said than done, given they’d already written three endings of the show, which they’d then had to extend.

“It's a fine line between trying to satisfy your fans and actually keep writing the thing that brought them there in the first place,” he says. “We had to reimagine the ending, because we thought season five was going to be the ending, so there were a few 'how do we land this?' moments.”

“I felt like there had to be one more sacrifice in there. I wanted it to be bittersweet as well, as opposed to just sweet,” he adds. “So we sat down and talked it through and agreed that, wouldn't it be great if Lucifer gave up his time with Chloe on Earth, and she got to be a single mum with Trixie and do all these things, because she has the knowledge she will be in eternity with him at some point?

“There was this kind of safety net underneath it, but it still played out with a bit of heartbreak that they didn't spend their lives together. But, of course, they spend eternity together. So we had that as our out.

“I really liked it, it wasn't neat and tidy, but it was still moving, and had all the beats everyone wanted. The way it came together, I was satisfied. To get to where we got to in season six, I think Joe and Ildy did a really amazing job.”

With Lucifer and Chloe finally getting their happy ending – albeit in the Underworld – Ellis reflects on the show’s legacy as one that brings people together, whether it be through friends, family or even religion.

“Some of the best messages and emails I've received since the show came out are from religious leaders and people of faith that have found something in it that still resonates with their faith,” he says. “I've had people say, ‘Oh, I used this in my sermon the other day’, and ‘I use this in my Bible study class’. It creates conversation, and that's great.”

“I think we went out on a high, and I think that's the best way,” he says of letting the show rest. “I think we pretty much covered all bases, without getting to the point where it just gets ridiculous, even though it's a story about the devil running a nightclub in LA! It's doing a disservice to the story we've already told.”

All episodes of Lucifer are available now on Netflix.

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