Profile Peter Capaldi Peter Capaldi as Doctor Who, with his first companion in the role, Jenna Coleman “I likse ctharraacterns wgho eare ” It’s not often a fan has the chance to play his childhood hero, which is why Peter Capaldi is determined to make the most of his tenure as Doctor Who. By Simon Evans T IS a mark of the extent Doctor Christmas special, due to air on Christmas from domestic to epic, within a single Who has established itself at the Day, and his third full series in the role, scene. You have to keep the ball in the air, heart of our national life that which airs next Spring. And Peter says that and you have to remember that The X the announcement of a new as long as the producers will have him, Factor is on the other channel. I actor to play the Time Lord now he’s happy to stay with a role that is, he “You have to remember that there are merits it’s own primetime show. says, “the best job on the telly”. people watching in America, you have to Thus it was that in August 2013 Peter Although his career stretches back to remember that, as much as you want to Capaldi was revealed as the new Doctor, the early Eighties, it was only with the apply your mature acting instincts, there during a show as glitzy and laden with satirical series The Thick of It, which ran are actually lots of children watching. minor celebs as an episode of Strictly from 2005 to 2012, that Capaldi became a You’ve got to cover all these bases, and Come Dancing. There was something household name. make it exciting and interesting, too.” quite surreal about this accomplished actor He played the sweary political adviser It was, however, a role he was and director being given the breathless Malcolm Tucker, a role reputedly based determined to master. Zoe Ball treatment, but Capaldi was being “You don’t just play Doctor Who; you quite truthful when he said it was the “I don’t want to go represent him. You represent the 50 years fulfillment of a childhood dream. in which he has meant an awful lot to an As a child growing up in Glasgow, to work every day awful lot of people. And the weight of it – Capaldi – who is 58 – was old enough to for nine months of and I really would never want to seem remember both William Hartnell and ungrateful – is that it is continual. It is very, Patrick Troughton from the early years of the year in a corner very nice because people always greet you the series, but it was the third Doctor, Jon with a certain affection, but it is basically Pertwee, who fired the young Capaldi’s of Burbank” every day, everywhere you go.” imagination, running the veteran actor’s Until The Thick of It and Doctor Who fan club and even writing a letter to the on Tony Blair’s director of came along, Capaldi had settled into the Radio Times about the show. communications Alistair Campbell role of the jobbing actor, his main claims On learning Capaldi had taken over (something Capaldi denies). There was a to fame being his role in the 1983 Bill the role Pertwee’s actor son Sean, malevolence, but also an essential Forsyth film Local Hero, playing John currently starring in US TV series humanity about Tucker that only an Malkovich’s manservant in Dangerous Gotham , revealed the his father and Peter actor of Capaldi’s range and talents could Liaisons, and in 1995, as writer and had been good friends. have conveyed. director, winning an Academy Award for “My father was very fond of Peter and Even so, quite a few eyebrows were his short film Franz Kafka’s It’s a Peter is an extremely lovely gentleman,” raised when he was announced as the Wonderful Life, starring Peter’s actress O Sean said. “He was very kind to my family latest incarnation of the Time Lord, and wife Elaine Collins and long-time pal T O H P when my father passed away and the Capaldi himself did not underestimate the Richard E Grant. K C O Pertwee household was delighted when challenge he was taking on. The Oscar should have opened up the T S Y M he got the role of The Doctor.” As he told the Telegraph: “You have to doors to Hollywood but didn’t, although A L A / A Capaldi has spent much of the past year be able to spin on a penny. You have to be Peter and Elaine were able to buy a house P F W filming the now traditional Doctor Who able to go from pantomime to tragedy, in Crouch End with the proceeds from a t © 20 CHOICE DECEMBER 2016 DECEMBER 2016 CHOICE 21 Profile Peter Capaldi t failed film option (they now live in Muswell Hill). The option was for a science-fiction Peter as Malcolm Tucker in script Peter had written called Moon Man the film In The Loop , based which, incidentally, had been his nickname on the TV series The Thick Of It . Tom Hollander is the at school, such was his fascination with the politician feeling his wrath then-current moon landings and love of science-fiction. O Acting jobs kept coming, though, and in T O H P 2005 he was asked to audition for a K C O part in The Thick of It. The audition process T S Y M was long and drawn-out and when Peter A L A / D eventually met the show’s creator, Armando T L N O Iannucci, he was in a foul mood. Peter I T C E thought he’d blown it, but Iannucci knew L L O C he’d found his man, and the character of E R O T foul-mouthed, manipulative Malcolm S E I V Tucker was perfect for the times. O M © The country had already endured eight O T Peter Capaldi, right, with Burt Lancaster, centre, in Local Hero O years of political ‘spin’ under the Blair H P K C Government, but rather than basing Nancy died last year but it was a source landlady was a costume designer and one O T S Tucker on Alistair Campbell, as was of much pride that when Peter visited her night, coming home drunk from the pub, Y M A L A presumed, Capaldi’s models were the in hospital towards the end of her life he he found her chatting to the film director / 2 1 S hot-shot American film producers, would get the film star treatment and Bill Forsyth, who had just enjoyed great O T O H “malevolent forces in Armani suits” as he whoops of instant recognition from the success with the film Gregory’s Girl. P described them, that he’d briefly nursing staff. Forsyth was immediately taken with © rubbed shoulders with during his While at art school Peter became a fan Capaldi and cast him in his new film, A Portrait of Scotland, a wonderful They have a daughter, Cecily, mainly because he’s not had any formal flirtation with Hollywood. of punk rock, singing in a band called the Local Hero, opposite Hollywood legend documentary on the history of Scottish who recently graduated from university dramatic training, but he’d surely make a It was all a long way from the rarefied Dreamboys, but also started to consider Burt Lancaster. Roles in the best forgotten portrait painting. Then a certain Time and is now living in London training wonderful Hamlet or perhaps, at some environs of Glasgow School of Art, where becoming an actor. By happy accident his Ken Russell film Lair of the White Worm Lord came calling and it’s fair to say life to be a teacher. Although he’s enjoying his point, King Lear. Capaldi had graduated in 1980. He had has never been quite the same, although moment in the spotlight, Peter is all too As for Hollywood, or at least American grown up in a tenement block in the “People always greet you with a certain affection” Peter’s family do all they can to keep his aware that he won’t be playing the good television, it holds no interest for Peter. Springburn area of Glasgow, where his feet on the ground. Doctor forever. He says that although “I don’t want to be a guy who parents – an Italian-born father (with a young Hugh Grant) and as George Peter met wife Elaine, who is now Malcolm Tucker belongs to the past, he’d goes to work every day for nine and Irish-born mother – ran a Harrison in the TV movie John and Yoko: a BBC producer, in 1983 when both were love to play Jeremy Corbyn, or perhaps months of the year in a corner of Burbank,” Peter and wife Elaine tie café antdh e kicneo-tc riena 1m991 delivery A Love Story followed and he would also working for the same theatre company. Francis Bacon. He’s wary of Shakespeare, he said at the height of the Thick of It, when business. His childhood was turn up in in roles as varied as a Songs of there were suggestions he could follow happy, “very safe, full of Praise producer in The Vicar of Dibley, fellow English thespian Hugh Laurie to delights” and life was busy and and a transvestite in Prime Suspect 3.