David Tennant Talks To The Times “I Hope I’m Not As Pathetic As In Staged”

David Tennant is interviewed in The Times today as part of their BAFTA feature.

In it he talks about working on Staged during the first lockdown, “I know, Zoom is a very strange acting environment, at its worst it feels like you’re trying to act through an open letterbox. But supported by some great writing, I think we hopefully did something new with it.”

“I hope I’m not as pathetic as in Staged,” he says. “I’m in trouble if I am. But that was the trick for me: find a few insecurities and then grotesquely magnify them. I must stress that: they were grotesquely magnified.”

“We had a few doubts it was possible: a married couple locked down in a house with five children (Ty, 19, Olive, 10, Wilfred, 8, Doris, 5, and Birdie, 1), being asked to learn lines, act, direct each other and work the cameras – not easy. However, when the choice is home schooling or being able at least to claim you are working… anything is possible. Post-pandemic, my respect for teachers knows no bounds.”

When asked if there could be another series of the comedy in the future he jokes “I don’t actually know Michael Sheen that well. What if we don’t get on in real life?”

He also talks about what he enjoyed watching during lockdown himself “If they made it, we watched it. I May Destroy You – brilliant. The Queen’s Gambit ditto. And we had a total binge of Line of Duty.”

And says he hopes to bring his revival Of Good to theatres eventually after continued postponements because of the pandemic, “If I have one wish for the immediate future it’s that we get the British stage back up and running,” he says. “I wouldn’t be here without the theatre. I don’t think you can nurture talent over Zoom.”

The full article can be read in today’s issue of The Times or via their website here.