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By Alan Sepinwall/The Star-LedgerDecember 24, 2009, 9:24AMDavid Tennant in a scene from “Doctor Who: The End of Time.”"Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part 1″- the first half of David Tennant’s farewell to the role – airstomorrow in the UK and then Saturday night at 9 on BBC America. Ihaven’t seen it in advance, but I do have the transcript of aninterview I did with Tennant at press tour back in late July, in whichhe looks back on his early days in the role, how his Doctor wound upwearing sneakers, how a childhood of pretending to be The Doctor turnedout to be very useful when he got to play the role for real, and a lotmore.

So read it after the jump, and whether you live in theUK or have, um, some means of accessing the episode after it airsthere, please refrain from discussing “End of Time” until after I’veseen it and posted about it, either Saturday night or sometime Sunday.Any comments referencing the content of the movie in any way will bedeleted.

(Two notes: First, as mentioned, this was doneback in late July, before Tennant was cast in his first American pilot,NBC’s “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer,” so at the end he discusses having earlymeetings with American producers and trying to gauge how much they knowof “Doctor Who.” Second, due to mechanical difficulties that I didn’tnotice until after the fact, the first five minutes of our conversation- most of it devoted to Tennant’s recent experience at Comic-Con in SanDiego – were not recorded. We pick up with Tennant discussing how hecame to his interpretation of the iconic character.)

I’mnot quite sure what decisions I made and what just occurred. Somewherein between making a decision and going with the flow, you end up with aperformance.

One of the differences between yourcharacter and (The Ninth Doctor) was that you were both sunnier anddarker. You could get very angry. Was that something that was on thepage when you were starting?

It’s how I wasinterpreting what was on the page, certainly, but I dare say adifferent actor would have done it very differently. It’s one of thosecharacters that is open to personal interpretation in a way othercharacters might not be. Because he can sort of be anything. You haveto just kind of see how it fits with you, I suppose. I love Russell’swriting, and I respond to it very keenly. I had just done Casanova,which he had written, and they felt in some ways like very similarcharacters. I mean, The Doctor does less shagging, but there’s a brio,and there’s a kind of passion for adventure which I think is similar inboth characters. So I possibly brought some of that with me. And theway Russell writes both characters, there’s an enjoyment of languageand of thought colliding with each other faster than the speed ofthinking. Which I’ve always liked. I like that kind of writing. I’m abig fan of “The West Wing,” and the way Aaron Sorkin writes thosepeople who can think and speak faster than the synapses can flash. Ilove characters who are clever and smart, and you have to run to catchup with. I think there’s something very appealing and rather heroic inthat. So it made sense that The Doctor should be like that, to me.

How much input did you have into things like the look?

Thelook was something that myself and the costume designer worked on handin hand. Russell and Phil (Collinson), our producer, and Julie(Gardner), our exec producer, they would all have an opinion, butbasically, Louise Page and I worked it out between us, and threw ideasback and forward and came up with ‘the look’ – which, again, from theminute you take over is what you’re being asked about. And that’s quitetricky, because it has to be of its time and yet timeless. And I alwayswanted a long coat. To me, it feels like The Doctor has to have a longcoat, and that’s something imprinted on me from childhood, because healways did. And there’s something heroic in a flapping coat, but at thesame time, I need to get rid of it sometimes and just be a scrawny guyin a suit that doesn’t quite fit. So there was a sense of authority tohim, but it’s undermined by his own carelessness. He wears a suit, butdoesn’t wear it with proper shoes. Something about that felt right.But, again, we arrived at it slightly by accident.

And it has to be something you can run around in and wear every episode.

Absolutely.I was very keen on soft shoes. That was something I was always adamantabout. That was the closest Louise and I had to a disagreement, and Iwas determined. In the first few episodes, they’re my own shoes,because I wanted them to be old and battered and lived-in and fallingapart. So until they did fall apart, I used my own shoes. And then, atthe point when they didn’t have any soles left, we got some new ones.For me, they were never as good again. I love when they were actuallyfalling off my feet.

Someone asked me if you got to keep a pair.

Theones that were mine, we actually ended up selling for charity. So Idon’t know who’s got them now. But I do have a couple of the pairs weused on the show. But there were hundreds of them.

Whenyou’re working with Billie (Piper), who’d had a pre-existingrelationship with the other Doctor, how do you approach that as anactor, in terms of his feelings for her?

Thatcould have been very tricky, because Billie would have every right tofeel it was her patch. But mercifully, because Billie is so generousand so lovely, and such a great actress and wonderful human being,frankly, it was such a joy to work with her, and such a pleasure.Dramatically, that’s what’s going on between the characters, becauseshe’s having to rediscover this new man who’s the same man she knew,and how she feels about that. But very quickly, I think we establishedthat relationship that they had was as deep, and ran even deeperultimately.

That’s one of the things I’ve alwayswondered about the franchise: does The Doctor have the same feelingsfor people and things that he did before he regenerated? Does he havethe same feelings for Sarah Jane that he did in the ’70s?

Notnecessarily, but with Rose, he certainly did. Meeting Sarah Jane againwas deeply moving for him, I think. And what was interesting there was,he, in a sense, has gotten younger. That’s The Doctor’s eternalproblem: he will always outlive his earthbound friends. And that’s agreat dramatic opportunity that you don’t get in normal drama. You’vegot this character who’s virtually immortal, certainly in terms ofanyone from Earth, and how does that impact on those relationships?Even within a fantasy action/adventure scenario, you get to play thesewonderful emotional beats. It’s unlike anything else.

PatrickStewart (with whom Tennant recently co-starred in a London productionof “Hamlet”) has talked about how one of the reasons he keeps beingasked to play these iconic science fiction characters is that thetraining that he has through Royal Shakespeare allows him to give it agravity and a reality, so it’s not just silly men in funny suits.

Well,there’s a similar trick – “trick” is underplaying it a bit – to playingShakepseare and to playing this kind of work: you’ve got to play itabsolutely real. But the language of Shakespeare is slightlyheightened, and you have to serve it up. And there’s a similar thing tothat science-fiction/fantasy stuff, and you have to absolutely groundit in veracity, and yet just serve it up a little bit. I completely getwhat Patrick says, and I’m sure Ian McKellen might admit to a similarthing. If you can sell that you’re the King of Scotland, or Henry V ona tiny stage in a studio theater somewhere, then you can probably sellthat you’re a starship captain or a time traveler. There is a similarskill there, yeah.

Obviously, when the two of youwere working together, you had larger concerns in mind. But was thereever a point where you were able to talk about your shared experience?

Wedid a bit. He had recently acquired his Star Trek costume afterspending years thinking he wasn’t going to get it, and I was hoping formine to arrive, so we talked about that. Of course, it’s been a hugepart of Patrick’s life and my life – as has the Royal ShakespeareCompany.

How was it to film your last scene as The Doctor?

Emotional.Thrilling, because the scripts are so exciting. You finally get – thischaracter that we do manage to explore, an emotional life for TheDoctor that you might not necessarily expect. Essentially, he has toremain unchanged at the end of each story that the series carries on -but when you get to the point where this version of the character isgoing to die and he knows he’s going to die, the sands of time arerunning out and the bell is tolling and all those metaphors, you get totake this immutable character to mutable places, and that’s veryexciting. And emotional, as well. The character’s coming to the end ofhis life, you’re coming to the end of your life on the show, which hasbeen all-consuming. Particularly back home, but all over the world,it’s a huge deal. It’s very important to people, and particularly tome, all of my life. So to be moving on from that – and I know I’llnever say goodbye to it entirely; I’m sure The Doctor will travel withme as long as I’m on this earth – that’s very moving and emotional, andit was to film it.

I assume you’ve had someconversations with some of your predecessors about this experience. Didthey have any advice? Or thoughts on what it was like for them?

Justthat it never really goes away. That it’s so loved, you can try to getaway from it, but you never will. That’s to be embraced, not fought.But I’m still too close to it to really know. Maybe I’ll need to bearound when the next series starts transmitting before I really knowhow I feel to have moved on. And I feel hugely privileged to have beenone of eleven.

I imagine that, having been a fan ofthe show as a child, it must be like growing up as a football fan andsuddenly you get to play for your club.

I thinkit probably is very similar. And it’s a weird mixture of emotions,because it’s such a thrill, and completely surreal to believe you’veended up in this position. And then you get on set, and there’s a jobto do, and you have to just knuckle down and do it. You can’t get toobothered about how absurd it is that you’ve ended up in this position.But it’s still hugely thrilling. The peripherals that come with it arevery weird: to be on a comic strip, to be a plastic figurine, to be ona t-shirt, and a cake and whatever else it is. They make everythingnow! They make soap, and anything you can care to think of. That’sweird. That’s not something you’re prepared for at drama school, thatwhole side of it. Being a merchandisable commodity is peculiar. But awonderful experience to have had.

Is this something that, as a child, you had ever fantasized about: ‘One day I could be The Doctor’?

Yes,but never realistically. Never really. It was a sort of whim. Because,like, there are only 11 of us. I was much more likely to play Hamletthan I was to get to play The Doctor. And both of those were pipedreams. There’s only 11 of us, only 8 of us alive who have had thathonor. It’s a giddy reality to confront.

Were therecertain parts of it that were either exactly as you might haveimagined, or not at all as you had imagined? Like being in the TARDIS?

Beingin the TARDIS never stopped being a thrill. It’s such a wonderful set,and such an iconic thing. Anytime you did start to get blase about it,there’d be a new guest member of the cast who would come and getthrilled with it again. We all grew up with it. It’s part of our racememory. You’d always be reminded, when someone new came on the show,how exciting it was. Everyone wanted to be photographed in the TARDIS,or to show their kids, or grandchildren – and, frankly, to be in itthemselves. Everyone wanted to be by the TARDIS console, and with theirarm around the Dalek.

And playing a scene opposite a Dalek or a Cyber-Man, that’s got to be quite surreal for you as well.

Quitesurreal – but really cool! The Daleks particularly. They have theseoperators inside of them, and they manage them so adeptly. And we havethe voice on set – Nick Briggs – and it’s wired up with cables, so thelights light up as he speaks. They happen, right there in front of you,all at once. Playing a scene with a Dalek, you can really immerseyourself in that reality. Some of the monsters are CGI or green-screen,and others are rubber head there, elements added afterwards, but theDaleks are live in front of you, happening.

But there was never, early on, a case of it being hard to focus on the acting because, “Hey, I’m in a scene with a Dalek”?

I’dsay the opposite of that. Because if your formative experiences arepretending to do that on the playground, it’s remarkably easy to justaccess that fantasy life again. I don’t think that’s underselling theprocess of acting. It’s just an easier fictional world to surrenderyourself to, because childhood memories are so potent. When you’rebeing paid and allowed to, you can give yourself over to the fantasyvery easily.

One of the themes, going back to “TheChristmas Invasion,” is that your Doctor can be a very destructiveforce. Donna says he needs to be controlled and all that. Is he a goodguy? Is he a bad guy in your mind? A mix of things? Something morecomplicated?

It’s complicated. He’s had some verydifficult experiences, with the Time War that we hear snatches of. Hewas clearly there when his own people perished. That left him withemotional scars, and he does have this tendency – there seems to be aslightly alarming tendency to bloodlust, in there somewhere. It’s quitewell repressed. He’s basically morally pure and righteous, but there’sa possibility of hubris in there. And that’s something we will explorein these final stories. There’s an Achilles heel there that he isn’tentirely resistant to.

Well, speaking of the TimeWar – when you play Hamlet, and you’re doing a scene about yourfather’s death, the character you’re playing has experienced thisdirectly. The Doctor that you’re playing sort of was in the Time War,but again, sort of not.

We’ll find out slightly more about that before the end. It won’t be more explicit.

Butgetting back to what I asked about earlier, he’s had these experiencesthat he didn’t really have. How do you access the emotions of thingsthat Eccleston experienced in the first season, or that the previousDoctors went through? Ten is a different character from them.

Yes,but he’s the same man. It is a peculiar one. There’s no right or wrongabout it, I guess, and you pick and choose when you’re the same man andwhen you’re a different man, if we’re being honest about it. Clearly,he’s the same man who experienced this. He still lost every member ofhis own race. That doesn’t change when he regenerates. That’s stillsomething he has to deal with, so I think he still feels those scars.

So something that happened to Paul McGann happened just as much to you?

Exactly.And when he meets Sarah Jane again, it’s the same man as met Sarah Janebefore. And that’s how she responds to it. She might be disconcertedthat he’s younger, but she gets that it’s the same man.

Well, speaking of youth, the three of you in this modern era are a fair amount younger than most of your predecessors.

Well, I’m a little younger than Chris (Eccleston), and Matt (Smith)’s a lot younger than me.

Doyou feel that that version of the show that Russell’s created and thatSteven (Moffat)’s going to carry on almost requires a younger man, justbecause of the physicality of it?

I don’t know. Ithink you could write the show to whoever was in the part. I don’tthink I’m wrong that Steven didn’t intend to cast an actor as young asMatt. His instinct was to take it a bit older again. Clearly, it comesdown to the actor. The Doctor can be anything, really. So I think youcast someone because they seem exciting and right and enthused andinspiring for the part, and that becomes what The Doctor is. The Doctorcan be anything, and if you cast a decent actor, then he’s The Doctor,and that’s it – whether he’s 73 or 23.

There werecertain archetypal episodes that Russell would do: The Doctor goes backand meets a classic English author, Doctor on a space station, etc.Were there types that you were particularly fond of as you got thatpoint in the season?

I would be fond of them allas they came up, to be honest. Because, unlike most long-running showswhere you’ve got the police office set, and the cafe set, and you tendto visit them again, we have one standing set on Doctor Who. We havethe TARDIS, and we’re only in it for about a minute each week. So eachepisode had such a particular life about it – a particular guest cast,it looked different, we filmed them in different places – that each onelives very distinctly in my memory. We got to go to Rome to film thePompeii one. And then some of them we would film completely in ourstudios in Cardiff. But each one feels distinct in my memory. Thevariety was absolutely the spice of it.

Do youfeel, having been through Comic-Con, and having seen how The Doctor isperceived at least by some people here, that having done this rolemight give you more of an entree to doing things here if you wanted to?

Maybe.Certainly, it’s been interesting being in LA for a few days, meetingpeople and seeing what response you get. But Doctor Who, it’s a funnyone. I think people who love it, love it, and are passionateabout. And people who don’t love it, don’t even know about it. So we’rein an interesting place here. And that’s coming from Britain, whereit’s part of popular culture. I still don’t quite get where we sit inAmerican culture. But it’s fun finding out.

Alan Sepinwall may be reached at asepinwall@starledger.com

Doctor Who: David Tennant interview