It’s time for us to meet the very special guest star of Voyage of the Damned – not to mention the star of this issue’s exclusive DWM cover! Benjamin Cook goes in search of the real Kylie Minogue…
This article originally appeared in DWM 390, published in December 2007.
It’s just before midday on Monday, 2 July 2007. There’s no better place to be than the Central Baptist Church, on Shaftsbury Avenue. This is where 50 or so members of the Doctor Who team, and a dozen or so actors, have gathered for the first readthrough of this year’s Christmas Special, Voyage of the Damned. Most of us are here already. A few are stuck in traffic. One such person is… someone so famous that her surname is redundant. Ladies and gentlemen…
It’s Kylie.
And so it is that DWM is sitting in a church in London, thinking about Kylie, about the 20 years’ worth of ‘stuff’ that we know about her. About our 80s childhood spent watching her in Neighbours. Her bottom made of Teflon. How she‘s overcome breast cancer. Her almost unmatchable success as a pop star. It’s hard to think of an artist who’s become so well-loved, and yet about whom we know so little. What’s the real Kylie like? Nice? Dull? A prima donna? A total mentalist? You can’t imagine her having a hissy fit, and throwing her diamond-encrusted microphone at a roadie, but we just don’t know. Our impression of Kylie the pop star, the celebrity, the artist, the icon, has always been more about the people around her: the songwriters, the collaborators, the stylists, the advisors, and the creative directors. The Great Enigma. And just as you’re wondering what on Earth this woman is going to be like, she walks in through the door.
It’s surreal to see Kylie Minogue – effortlessly beautiful, and even shorter than you expect – work the room as the rest of us mingle and pretend not to be watching her every move, and to see her approach each of us in turn, hold out her hand and say, “Hello, I’m Kylie.”
“WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!” we reply. “OH MY GOD, YOU’RE KYLIE MINOGUE!!!”
No, we don’t say that. That would not be cool. DWM remains professional, says hello back, explains who we are, and then finds that there’s not a lot left to say at this stage other than “Do you think we could be friends?” Kylie must know that’s what DWM is thinking, because she smiles and moves on.
Five minutes later, we’re sat around a table, Christmas Special scripts in front of us. Jane Tranter, the Controller of BBC Fiction, is saying some nice things about Doctor Who. “You turn television into an art form,” she says. “I’m incredibly jealous and envious, blah, blah, blah, of what you’re about to put yourselves through, blah, blah.” But we’re not really listening. We’re watching Kylie. She has amazing skin.
And then we have to go around the table, introducing ourselves again. “I’m Kylie Minogue,” says Kylie Minogue, “and I’m playing Astrid.”
There’s lots of applause. We’re all just relieved that she’s here at all. Next around the table is Clive Swift. He’s playing Mr Copper. “How do I follow that?” he says, and everyone laughs. Kylie laughs, too. We all know this because no one can take their eyes off her.
After the readthrough, in which Kylie was on fine form (and pronounced ‘Banakaffalatta’ right first time), the producers and director huddle in a corner for the usual post-mortem, while David Tennant and Kylie pose for publicity pictures outside. “She got everything spot on,” whispers showrunner Russell T Davies.
Then back in she pops to say goodbye. “Looking forward to seeing you in Cardiff,” says director James Strong.
“You’d better crack the whip,” Kylie teases him.
Almost two months later, DWM is waiting for Min – yes, it’s Min now, because her friends call her Min – at the Worx, a studio in Parsons Green, London, where she will pose and pout and flash some leg for her first ever DWM photo shoot. Kylie! DWM! Exclusive! This could sell more than our Vervoid cover of five years’ ago! (Do you think?) A Dalek is travelling here from BBC Wales especially. The plan is to recreate Katy Manning’s legendary 1978 shoot for Girl Illustrated, in which the one-time companion (Katy played Jo Grant in the early 70s) posed virtually naked with a Dalek. Kylie will wear clothes, but not too many. Fine by us.
Kylie’s Manchester-born, long-time creative director William Baker is taking the pics. “The Katy Manning photo came through yesterday,” he tells DWM, as his pug puppy dog Arthur slides drunkenly over the polished floor. “I thought perhaps I shouldn’t show it to Min until after the shoot.”
“Can we move that Dalek into position, please?” asks Will, as Kylie ducks behind a curtain to slip on a little gold number.
“Does the dress work with those shoes?” she asks, and Will nods enthusiastically. He’s aiming for an 80s title sequence look, he says.
“So how do you want me?” she asks, draping herself over the Dalek like a pro. “Oh, I see, like a fox.”
“God, you look gorgeous,” says Will. If the Dalek could speak, it would say the same.
“Will always says that,” retorts Kylie, rolling her eyes. “Hey, we can put Arthur on the Dalek?” Arthur is more interested in having a wee.
After the shoot, while Will clears up after Arthur, Kylie settles down with DWM for a chat. She remains a hesitant interviewee, choosing her words cautiously, as though she has 20 years’ experience of being misquoted. We had to submit our questions in advance, perhaps so Kylie – or Kylie’s people – could make sure we’re not going to ask her about UNIT continuity, or who started the Time War, or whether the Taran Wood Beast would beat the Garm in a fight. But before the sanctioned stuff, DWM can’t resist quizzing Kylie about the Dalek. Had she even heard of the Daleks before today?
“Of course I had,” she exclaims, all mock disgust. “There was a lot of excitement when the Dalek arrived this morning. I was in the presence of a legend. I’ve had to gracefully accept second billing today. Well, at least I’m younger! Needless to say, all the crew wanted their picture taken with the wondrous one.” We think she means the Dalek, although DWM was pretty excited to have our picture taken with Kylie. “The Dalek was in great condition, and much bigger than I’d expected. At least I’ve met one now, as I didn’t in the Christmas episode.” Something else occurs to her: “Do you know what? I never held the sonic screwdriver either! I had many opportunities, but kept prolonging the moment, and then never got around to it. Maybe next time…?”
Kylie recounts how she came to be involved in the Doctor Who Christmas Special. As we know, a certain Mr Baker had something to do with it… “It’s true, Will is my dear friend,” says Kylie, “and an absolute super fan of Doctor Who. We’re talking a convention-goer here! Even before its recent revival, I was always hearing about it.”
Had she watched the show herself?
“I grew up with Doctor Who in Australia,” she reveals, “so it’s part of my childhood. I was very flattered to be invited to be part of the show, especially the Christmas episode. When I was asked to do it by Russell and Julie [Gardner, executive producer], we had a meeting over coffee to discuss what the role might be, and I just fell in love with the two of them.” Asked what particularly impressed her about the producers, Kylie pinpoints “their humour, talent and passion for the show. At this stage, Russell hadn’t written the script, so to know that he’d write it after our meeting made it all the more personal.”
“Astrid came first,” confirms Russell, when we catch up the following week. “When you watch Voyage of the Damned, you’ll realise that there would have had to be someone in Astrid’s place, no matter what, but this was unusual in that we were talking to Kylie before a word had been written, so her presence was always there. But I never, hand on heart, expected our discussions to succeed, so I wrote the Astrid that I would have written anyway – another of the Doctor’s Christmas companions, like Donna before her.”
Pop quiz question: how would Kylie sell the character of Astrid in a personal ad? “Curious dreamer ready for adventure,” she replies, “seeks soul mate for an eternity of love and cosmic adventures.”
A bit rehearsed, but cute. So was Kylie nervous about taking on the role? She looks like a cool lady, but DWM wonders whether there’s an inner turbulence.
“I was a little nervous. But being amongst such wonderful actors, and playing opposite David Tennant, who’s divine, made me determined to do my absolute best.” If we were hoping for tales of behind-the-scenes bust-ups , prepare to be disappointed, because Kylie stresses one point above all others: “I have to say, everyone made me feel so welcome and at ease, which made my job a whole lot easier.”
Given that she hadn’t acted for a while, how did she prepare for the role? Is going back to acting like riding a bike?
“My first day on set was like stepping back in time. No, no, I mean that in the best way! I felt really at home being back in the world of TV and acting. Although I had nerves, I loved the challenge of playing Astrid.”
As opposed to singing on stage?
“Exactly. It felt very liberating to be a character and not ‘Kylie’. I’ve definitely got the acting bug again.”
Kylie may be best known for her singing career (ten studio albums, two live CDs, seven live concert DVDs, and over 40 singles released internationally, all of which have been hits – apparently, she has sold over 40 million records worldwide), but her first professional acting role, aged 11, in Australian TV series Skyways, came around eight years before she embarked on a career as a recording artist. After her seventeenth birthday, Kylie left school to take up acting as a fulltime profession. By the time she was an adult, she had won five Logies (the Australian equivalent of a BAFTA); the youngest actress ever to do so. Her character Charlene in Neighbours, Australia’s highest-rated TV show back then, made her a household name, and arguably Kylie is still the most popular actress to have come out of the Australian soap. No, scrap that – Kylie is the most popular thing to have come out of Australia full stop.
How does the schedule on something as action-packed as Doctor Who compare to Neighbours?
“The schedule on a soap, especially with publicity duties, is busy,” she acknowledges, “but working on Doctor Who was full on. Action sequences are tiresome, keeping up the energy take after take, and being so physical…”
But don’t you prefer the Welsh weather, Kylie?
“Cardiff was very welcoming. I think we saw every season in the three-and-a-half weeks that I spent there! I enjoyed being away from London so that I could, you know, really focus on the job, and try and squeeze in sleep in between wrap and the next early-morning call time. The most difficult days were the ones where we were filming in a cold, damp old building, with special effects such as steam, smoke and explosions…”
The Mamhilad Park Industrial Estate, in Pontypool, about half an hour from central Cardiff, is not the most glamorous of locations. It’s Tuesday, 24 July, and it’s like the Black Hole of Culcutta in here. Except bigger. And darker. BBC film crews have been known never to return from the Mamhilad Park Industrial Estate. On a serious note, it smells strongly of paint. Black paint. In the middle of it all, Kylie, in a waitresses’ uniform, is scrambling up a grimy stairwell. But she looks as though she’s having a bloody good time!
“Am I too dusty?” she says, exploding with laughter after the take.
“No, no, no, you need to get dustier,” jokes David. “Do you want some more dust? Shall I fetch you some dust? Oh, Christmas Day – my enjoyment is ruined by the dust distribution in an otherwise excellent episode!”
Kylie is in hysterics. “Oh, don’t!”
It’s David and Kylie’s fifth day at the Mamhilad Park Industrial Estate, amid all the fallen girders, metal pipes, and pieces of ship that make up the wrecked Titanic. “What’s first?” asks David, when it comes to rehearse the next shot. “The silver bumper? I’m confused which prop we have to go for. It’s a prop-fest! How about I go over here, and I pull Kylie through the gap there…?”
The director nods. “Yes, and then you see something behind you, something’s coming alive…”
At the top of the stairwell stands a small red man in a black bowtie. On first glance, DWM thought he was a fire extinguisher. In fact, it’s the Banakaffalatta. Kylie is rather taken with him. “When I first saw him,” she says, “I presumed that he’d be sharp and spiky, but feel that,” she says, stroking his latex-encased head, “isn’t it soft?”
Which scene from Voyage of the Damned is Kylie most proud of?
“Um… I’m not sure which scene,” she says, thinking hard, and wary of spoilers, “but the one that I always think of is the first one that we shot: crossing the bridge. It was a great first day as the gang, all my co-stars, were in that scene, and it felt like we were united from the beginning. I loved meeting all the other actors, and it’s amazing how you just become used to hanging out with a guy who looks like a prickly red conker!”
Another pop quiz question: if you were on a sinking ship, and you only had time to save either the master-tapes of your new album (her tenth studio album, released in November, is called, simply, X) or the master-tapes of Voyage of the Damned… which would you go for, Kylie, and which would you send plummeting to the murky depths, to be lost forever?
“You are too cruel!” she shrieks.
But you’ve got to answer.
“Oh, but how could I make that choice?” A long pause follows. Sending Kylie the questions in advance has made little difference. Presently, she says, “Being presidentically diplomatic, I have to say both.”
She hasn’t answered the question, but she has just invented a word. The campaign starts here to get ‘presidentically’ into the OED. Or at least have it show up on a Google search. Does Kylie ever Google herself?
“Of course I’ve Googled myself. It’s not a good thing to do very often, as it can be too overwhelming, especially when there’s another stupid story bearing no resemblance to the truth. But hey, we live in this modern age, so it’s good to know what’s going on. I have various platforms to communicate with fans. I love being involved in new ideas and technology.”
Born Kylie Ann Minogue in Melbourne, Australia, in May 1968 (between the fifth and final episodes of The Wheel in Space – if you care about these things), it is hard to believe that 2008 will see Kylie turn 40. At this point in her life, what are her expectations of herself?
“In this business, you never have the time you would like,” she replies, thoughtfully, “and there’s always some drama, so to be able to… you know, navigate those obstacles by experience is very satisfying.”
Some experiences provide greater satisfaction than others, perhaps?
“Maybe,” she smiles. “At this time in my life, I feel grateful for all the wonderful experiences I’ve been lucky enough to have, and I’m looking forward to those yet to come. I value all the experience I now have to be able to draw upon.”
DWM’s time with Kylie is drawing to a close. We’re not much closer to discovering the real Kylie, but then we’ve fallen in love with her, and we’re still slightly in awe, so perhaps we don’t want to know. Mystique equals dignity equals one class act. A final question, then: Kylie, please present our readership with your three-point plan for making this Christmas the best Christmas ever?
“Three-point plan? Eat, drink, and be merry? No… love, laugh, and sing.”
That pretty much sums up La Minogue’s philosophy on life, doesn’t it? Love. Laugh. Sing. And it’s worked for her so far.
Benjamin Cook
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