When David Tennant was three, he told his parents he wanted to grow up to play Doctor Who on TV. As a teen, he held onto that dream: "I was quite weedy and I wore glasses and I had a terrible haircut, so all those things still felt possible in the world of the Doctor. There was something about that character I could be," Tennant tells Sam Briger. He was Doctor Who for five years and, it turns out, he was suited for lots of other characters–including villains and detectives, and the lead in many Shakespeare plays.Later, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new series Dying for Sex, starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: How did David Tennant become Doctor Who?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Today's guest, David Tennant, is best known as an actor, but he also has an interview podcast, which is now in its third season. Some of this year's guests include Stanley Tucci, Ben Schwartz, and Rosamund Pike. Tennant spoke with Fresh Air's Sam Brigger. Here's Sam.
Chapter 2: What roles has David Tennant played beyond Doctor Who?
Scottish actor David Tennant's list of accomplishments is as long as it has varied. Perhaps best known for playing Doctor Who, he is also considered one of the finest Shakespearean actors of his generation, as you can see now in the film of his Macbeth, which was staged in 2023, with Tennant playing the lead and Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth. It's now streaming on Marquee TV.
He is also memorably played Hamlet and Richard II. You probably watched him as the haunted and brooding detective in the British crime drama Broadchurch, and maybe even in the American adaptation called Grace Point, where he plays more or less the same role but with an American accent.
David Tennant has also been his share of screen villains, including real-life serial killer Dennis Nilsen in the miniseries Dez, Kilgrave in the Marvel TV show Jessica Jones, one of the most repugnant characters I have ever seen, as well as the smaller but memorable, lip-licking Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
He also hosted the BAFTA Awards for the past two years, Great Britain's version of the Oscars, this year opening the ceremony singing the song 500 Miles in a bespoke black jacket and kilt suit. And he was hilarious to watch playing a version of himself in the streaming comedy staged with Michael Sheehan, one of the few good things to come out of the COVID pandemic.
David Tennant also has a podcast called David Tennant Does a Podcast With, where you fill in the name of the guest from that episode, often an actor he has worked with. A third season of the podcast released this year, and while we might have said, hey, David Tennant, stay in your lane. There's enough long-format interview shows out there.
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Chapter 3: Why did David Tennant return to podcasting?
Instead, we decided that this would be a good opportunity to have him on our long-format interview show to ask him about his life and career. So David Tennant, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you very much for having me. You did two seasons of your podcast ending in 2020, but then you came back last month with the third season. Why did you come back now?
There was a certain sense of there were a few people I had either meant to interview or had sort of got to know in the interim. And I thought I would have naturally interviewed them when I'd done this podcast before. So maybe now is an opportunity to to kind of scoop them up. It really has always been the case with the podcast. It's something I've done.
I don't mean to minimise it, but it's almost been a hobby, like a sideline, like a sort of thing I've done for pleasure when I've had a moment. It's never been my principal job. So it was just a sort of moment of opportunity.
When you go into these interviews, like, do you have a specific agenda? Like, are you when you're like, oh, Olivia Colman, I've always wanted to know this about her? Or do you sometimes think about things in your own career which have puzzled you that gives you an opportunity to ask someone else who does the same work?
Yeah, there's certainly there's definitely a bit of that a bit of there are some slightly odd things about being in this profession and what it sort of does to your life outside the work. That is the sort of bit you don't get trained for at a drama school. You know, one of the sort of side effects of being successful as an actor, I suppose, is that you lose an element of anonymity.
And I found that personally quite challenging when it happened to me. So I'm always quite intrigued to know how others have survived. dealt with that or are dealing with that or kind of characterise what that does to them and the people around them. But it's a mixture of things.
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Chapter 4: How does David Tennant handle celebrity interactions?
You're also just, again, if it's someone you know, you're often interested in sort of celebrating them and wanting the world to know them and understand what's likeable about them, because there's a sort of delight in celebrating that to the public somehow. Yes, it's always a mixture of impulses, I think.
Speaking about coping with being a celebrity, you tell a story that someone asked you for an autograph while you were naked in a shower at the gym.
Yeah, absolutely. Yes, and moments like that are quite peculiar. Yes, perhaps that's stating the obvious. But I'm always quite intrigued to know if other people have had similar experiences or how they would have dealt with experiences like that.
Because I think it's quite... It's a bit of a sort of club that you can't really expect any sort of sympathy for because it's a very privileged position to be in. But it's, you know, it's a complicated one. It's one I struggle with because you're also very aware if someone...
wants to have a moment's interaction with you that they're sort of that moment for them is representing all the work you might have done that has meant something to them so that's a hugely it's quite a precious moment for someone else whereas you might be just thinking I'm going to be late for this appointment that you're having a bad day or something Oh, you're having a bad day. Yeah.
And of course, you're not really going to make the situation better by explaining to someone why this is an inappropriate moment. If they're not seeing that for themselves, I draw you back to the moment in the shower. That man obviously didn't understand why.
i was finding this peculiar and odd so it became simpler to sort of carve a signature into what was the mulch of the piece of paper that he was now holding under a shower uh and sort of he said thank you very much and went on his way well i wanted to talk about another version of david tennant that you've played um
on three seasons of the show staged with Michael Sheen.
Oh, yeah.
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Chapter 5: What is the show 'Staged' about?
He was quite funny in the show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.
I have to say that when I first heard about the show, I didn't think I was going to enjoy watching it. Oh, no. It sounds desperately dull.
And also, it was reflecting what we were all living.
We were all living our lives on Zoom. And the last thing I wanted to do was watch a TV show about Zoom. However, it quickly won me over because it's so funny. I thought we would play a scene from the show. Oh, good. To set this up, Michael Sheehan is irritated with you at this point. That's that track. Yeah. Because originally you were going to do this play with someone else.
So he was the second choice. So you guys are doing a reading. And I think we'll also hear Simon Evans in this. And he's desperate to keep things on track. But Michael Sheehan is basically trying to pick a fight with you. And you have had a line where you use the word heard. And he's questioning how you're saying that word. So let's hear that.
What's wrong with my words? I'm struggling to believe them. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. Okay. Would you try something for me? Oh, sure. I'm happy to, yeah. Is that okay, Simon? I'd rather be just pushed on, actually. It won't take a sec. Just give me, I want to be heard again. I want to be heard. Simon? I thought that was great. You don't think he sounds cartoonish? Cartoonish?
I've thought it for a while now. Absolutely not. No, I don't. David, it's with you. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. Please, can we carry on? I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. It's got to have something. I want to be heard. It's got to have something behind it.
No, it's got to come from somewhere. Just because you're mumbling doesn't make it good. I speak the same language as you. You're barely speaking, though. You're barely speaking. You're whispering it. I want to be heard. Let's pretend we're all human beings. Yeah, who have ears that need to receive the vibrations. I mean, it's not a hearing thing. It's a sort of a feeling thing.
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Chapter 6: How did David Tennant approach his role in Macbeth?
That was the real hell, the homeschooling. Just trying to be the sort of manager-cum-teacher that keeps them on track was very, very hard. And then our eldest... His 18th birthday came three, four days after lockdown was called. So his big 18th birthday celebration was spent staring at us over the kitchen table. I still feel like he got slightly shortchanged there. Yeah, yeah.
So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your work doing Shakespeare. Your version of Macbeth that I think was originally staged in 2023 is now available to stream on Marquee TV. And you star with Kush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth. Yeah. This is a very minimalist staging. The stage itself is pretty much like this white platform.
Yeah.
And the audience is sort of around the stage. And I noticed watching the film of it that all the audience members were wearing headphones. Why was that?
It was one of the... Max Webster, our director, it was one of his very earliest ideas. He was fascinated with the idea of Macbeth as a soldier. He'd done a production of Henry V where they'd looked a lot into the actuality of being a soldier who goes to war, what that might do to you, ideas around PTSD and shell shock. And he talked to people who'd experienced that.
And the idea that one would hear voices... that one would imagine things were happening that weren't. And he sort of took the idea of PTSD and put it onto Macbeth and it kind of fits remarkably well. I mean, who knows what Shakespeare's experience was with veterans from whatever wars were around at the time.
But it feels like it all tracks with how modern day veterans describe some of the things they struggle with after tours of duty. And he started working with a sound designer called Gareth Fry, who'd done other shows where the audiences all wore headphones.
And you can do extraordinary things then to the audience's experience, because for a start, you can whisper very quietly and you can move where that whisper is. So if you can do that for the audience, they get an understanding of perhaps what's happening inside Macbeth's very troubled brain.
So you could particularly when so much of what Macbeth says is in soliloquy, which is an address to the audience. I think it was just using a tool that was available and adding to that, you have a sort of soundscape, which is happening the whole time.
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Chapter 7: What are the challenges of performing Shakespeare?
The highest position, but on a revolving yearly basis because the Church of Scotland is built on the idea that there should be no hierarchy. So you take a turn and you step back again.
He also had a TV show called That's the Spirit that he co-hosted.
What was that show like?
Did you ever go to the set?
I did, actually, yes. It was on Scottish television. But yes, he did. On a Sunday afternoon in Scotland, you could see my dad in That's the Spirit. It was a sort of religious magazine program. So he would, you know, he would go and meet a community project. He would do a little bit to camera where he gave a little message for the day.
He'd do interviews with people who were doing interesting or important things in the world of, I suppose, divinity or outreach or whatever it was. But yeah, he did that for quite a few years. And I remember sitting off camera and watching it happen a couple of times. Yeah.
I have a hard time believing the story, but it's been told many times. Oh, come on. What's this? At the age of three, you told your family that you wanted to be an actor because you wanted to play Doctor Who.
Which is the bit you find most implausible about that story? Because I have thought.
Well, first of all, just the wish fulfillment that you were able to achieve in your adulthood playing one of the most famous Doctor Whos. But also, like, did you at the age of three understand that Doctor Who was an actor? Like, did you want to act as Doctor Who? Did you want to be Doctor Who? Yeah.
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