David Tennant has confirmed that his latest movie release Mad To Be Normal is headed for a US release. David was talking to fans attending this weekend's Wizard World convention in Columbus, Ohio when he was asked about taking on the role of the 1960s psychiatrist R.D. Laing for the film.
"It is going to released in the US, we've just heard," he told the crowd in response to a question about what had drawn him to the role. "We don't quite know how that's going to happen yet, or what sort of version, but you are going to get to see it over here, so it's coming!"
Expending on Laing and the film, David said, "[Mad To Be Normal] is specifically about a time in the '60s when he took over a place called Kingsley Hall in the East End of London. He became very disillusioned with the way people with psychiatric problems were being treated, and he was very disillusioned with electroconvulsive therapy and a lot of the drugs that were being prescribed, so he formed this commune in the East End of London where people who were having psychiatric difficulties lives with doctors, and everyone was on a level, there was no medication and people did what they wanted, the idea being that if you talked to the illness you would address the illness ad the illness would address itself. It was very controversial, it wasn't entirely successful and his legacy is ambiguous because of that. But what I think he did do was he started a debate, which is still going on now, about how we treat mental illness and that's hugely important"
"He was a hugely controversial figure, a complicated figure," he continued. "He was from Glasgow. He was quite tall and lanky so immediately I thought, 'Oh, I can play him!' But he's fascinating because he had these extraordinary ideas that were rather ahead of their time, and he himself was a very conflicted man. So from an acting point of view that's great, you get to play someone who's brilliant and also troubled, it's almost the cliché of the therapist who can't heal themselves. He was a man with many demons that he wrestled with throughout his life. I knew of him and then when I heard this film was being made and when I read the script it was one I wanted to have a shot at. He's a fascinating character."
Written and directed by Robert Mullan, Mad To Be Normal also stars Elisabeth Moss, Michael Gambon and Gabriel Byrne.
Keep up with all the Mad To Be Normal updates via our website.
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