STACK November Issue 68

20 / 58

a trail of distress and pain among some people.
And he didn’t really enjoy that, but he’s come
to realise that’s his role, that he will pursue the
greater good sometimes at the cost to other
people.
“I think having realised that that’s who he
is, he realises that life is short, even if you’re
a two and a half thousand year-old Time Lord,
and his time in this regeneration is short. So he
recognises that it’s time to make the most of
that and enjoy life – he and Clara are now a little
gang charging through the universe
for adventure and being reckless.
But that doesn’t mean the Doctor
of the last season has vanished;
it’s Doctor Who and there’s
something coming, so he can’t
go on having a good time and
range around the universe
enjoying himself because
visit FEATURE DVD&BD
20 NOVEMBER 2015
Peter Capaldi’s second year as DOCTORWHO sees a shift in the dynamic
between the Doctor and his companion, Clara Oswald, as well as a greater
sense of adventure. Scott Hocking caught up with Capaldi and Jenna Coleman
at San Diego Comic-Con to discover what fans can expect in Series Nine.
Talking to Peter Capaldi is like talking to
Doctor Who, in the sense that there’s a
lot of the actor’s personality and charisma
invested in the character. But even after a year
in the role, he admits there’s still nothing easy
about playing one of TV’s most iconic figures.
“It’s quite a difficult role because of the tone
of the programme,” Capaldi explains. “I have to
say because I’ve been a big fan of Doctor Who
since I was a kid, and played Doctor Who in the
playground, I thought it would be a bit easier.
But with my adult acting head on, as it were,
it’s more challenging than I thought; you have to
be able to be quite funny, and then quite tragic
and sad, domestic and cosmic, all in one scene.
It’s often quite hard to commit truthfully to all
those contrasts, but that’s what the job is. And
you have to be a bit over the top – big eyes, big
nose, big hair!” [Jenna Coleman notes that her
co-star has “ticked all of those boxes”.]
Capaldi’s casting reintroduced the
character’s alien side; in Series Eight his Doctor
is a darker and more enigmatic persona than
Matt Smith and David Tennant’s interpretations,
uncertain if he’s “a good man” and making
morally questionable decisions that can have
disastrous consequences.
“I think the most exciting thing about the
character is that he actually changes,” Capaldi
says. “In each new regeneration he has to
discover who he is himself; it’s a mystery to
him who he is. So I think a lot of the last season
was about him struggling to come to terms
with the fact that, morally, he had to make
some decisions for the greater good and leave
there’s a price to pay.”
Series Nine also sees a shift in the
relationship between the Doctor and Clara, as
well as revealing a more adventurous side to
the Doctor’s companion.
“I think with a show like Doctor Who, you
have to let it take its own life,” says Jenna
Coleman. “It was a really new companion/
Doctor relationship, I felt, complicated and not
easy, but deeply bonded. And it’s really nice
in this series to have got to the point where
they are quite close-knit and a team, facing
adventure together. This series Clara isn’t split,
she’s not earthbound and space-bound. Having
lost Danny Pink, her perspective has changed
and again, like the Doctor, she just wants to eat
it all up and look for adventure with reckless
abandon and freedom.”
Capaldi notes it’s this sense of adventure
that gives the ninth series an epic quality.
“We go to corners of the galaxy, time
and space, that we haven’t done before
and it’s realised in a very cinematic,
visual kind of way. There’s a great sweep
to it in terms of the adventure
but also emotionally – there’s
a lot of stuff going on
emotionally that will get
paid off.”
SPIRIT OF
ADVENTURE
We go to corners
of the galaxy, time
and space, that we
haven't done before...
:
1