Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook, reunited for the first time in over eight years, talk candidly to Benjamin Cook about the TV Movie – hacking each other off, kissing with tongues, their “amazingly bad” co-star, and walking out of the premiere. Plus, what Paul really thinks about the new series. “I’m here to tell you that I would have turned it down,” he insists…
This article originally appeared in DWM 351, published in December 2004.
They’re back – and it’s about, ooh, half-part three in the afternoon. We’re sat in the green room at the Moat Studios in London, where Paul McGann (half-human) and Daphne Ashbrook (American) are recording The Next Life, a feature-length Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama. Paul is playing the Eighth Doctor, but Daphne is not reprising her role as Grace Holloway from the 1996 TV Movie. (Big Finish don’t own the rights.) Instead, she plays Perfection: the battered wife of a missionary, looking for love and affection on a desert island.
You’d hardly think that this was the first time Paul and Daphne have seen each other since 1996. They’re sat in the green room, laughing and joking and chatting away like old mates. Daphne, I am informed, is always like this. A friendlier person you could not wish to meet. Paul, on the other hand, is usually more reserved. An intensely private man, he can come across as, well, a bit of an introvert. I’ve been in green rooms with Paul where he will pointedly sit apart from the rest of the cast, totally silent unless directly approached – and while he’s not actually being rude, it’s clear that he likes to keep himself to himself.
Today, however, Paul couldn’t be livelier. I’ve never seen him this outgoing. Whether waxing lyrical about The Guinness Book of Records (don’t ask), encouraging us all to hang around launderettes (great places to observe human behaviour), explaining why volleyball should not be an Olympic sport… Paul even agrees to be photographed for DWM without so much as a struggle! There must be something in the water.
And so to the interview. Daphne warns me that she may be a little… erratic? When the press interviewed her at the TV Movie’s US premiere, all she could answer to any question put to her was “Brilliant!” (“Did you enjoy making the movie, Daphne?” “It was brilliant.” “Tell us about your character.” “She’s, um, brilliant.” “What’s Paul like to work with?” “Yes. Brilliant.” Etc.)
“You haven’t got any written questions,” Paul remarks as we settle down to chat.
“It’s all up here,” I reply, tapping my head like an idiot.
An awkward pause. “I like that,” smiles Paul. “Brilliant.” And then he realises. “It’s brilliant! You see? See what you’ve started?” he laughs and turns to Daphne, who joins him laughing.
“Brilliant!” they both chime in unison.
What’s the relationship between your characters in The Next Life?
Paul: “I haven’t read it yet.”
Daphne: “What, none of it?”
PM: “Well, no, we’ve recorded the end. I know the end now. We don’t like each other at the end. But what happens in the middle?”
DA: “Um, er, I help you through the forest, I help you through the jungle, because you’re about to be killed by crabs, giant crabs. And I shoot ‘em and I kill ‘em, and they squeal, and then you thank me…”
PM: “‘Cause we’re running from your squeeze. Yeah, so that’s our relationship. We need one another.”
DA: “But I have an ulterior motive. I’m trying to get into reality or something, to move into a different world. Does that make sense? Sorry, bad answer.”
Not at all. That makes perfect sense. Are you ever struck by the bizarreness of your profession – running through forests being chased by giant crabs? For a living? Or are you used to it?
DA: “Yeah, Paul! How does that feel?”
PM: “I wake up feeling like that, though.”
DA: “You wake up feeling like you can’t believe I do this for a living?”
PM: “No, like I’m running through forests being chased by –”
DA: “[Laughing] Well, he’s just cray-zee.”
PM: “It feels kind of normal to me.”
DA: “No, no, well, not for me. I actually sometimes would love to just sit and laugh my bum off, because I feel like I can’t believe that I’m doing all that ‘argh, ooh, urgh, ewww, aaah’ stuff. I wish I were more like you, Paul, but sometimes I have to stop feeling ridiculous so that I can say my lines.”
PM: “These are great, though, the audios, ‘cause nobody cares what you look like. You can pull all the faces you want. And we do.”
This is the first time that you’ve worked together since the TV Movie. Does it seem like eight years ago?
PM: “Is that how long it is? Jesus.”
DA: “That is a long bloody time.”
What were your first impressions of one another?
DA: “I hated him. [Grins] Heh – just kidding. Kidding! But you have to make the joke. What was my first impression? Couldn’t stand him.”
PM: “Where were we? We were in that guy’s –”
DA: “We did a reading at the table and I sat next to you and that kind of pissed you off.”
PM: “Yeah, you did. You pissed me right off.”
DA: “I frustrated him! It was student syndrome. I’m, like, ‘Oh, I really want us to sit together, because we’re reading together,’ even though I kind of felt uncomfortable too.”
Daphne, what frustrated you most about Paul?
DA: “Well, I knew Withnail and I, so I had a little bit of prep. Heh! But I was nervous. I’m nervous at every first read-through. He could have turned out to be a bit of a –”
PM: “Where did we first shoot? It was at that guy’s house…”
DA: “Yep. And we had to rehearse there, so we had a little bit of prep there, too. I liked that sequence.”
PM: “That was the best fun of all!”
DA: “You were doing all your, ‘Ooh, look at that,’ looking into my microscope, and I was going, ‘You have two hearts!’”
PM: “[Laughing] Yeah, I liked that. That was the best week was the first week. I liked all that. And then it became mad. Motorbike stunts and… daa-da-daa, da-da-da-daa! Yeah, I didn’t like that so much. They’re a little boring, special effects. It’s just repetitious. And you can’t get going, you know?”
What was Eric “The Master” Roberts like to work with?
PM: “He was kind of strange to work with, I think. He could be amazingly good, and really on the money, but sometimes he could just be… well, amazingly bad.”
DA: “[Laughing] Oh my God! You can’t –”
PM: “And like, just way off. Couldn’t he? When I think of him, I always think of him taking nearly three weeks to realise that that guy with the skinhead, the guy on the set at the end of the day, was me!”
DA: “[Explodes with laughter] Yes, that’s right!”
PM: “It was me without the wig on! It took him weeks to twig that.”
DA: “He didn’t really make a lot of friends.”
PM: “You’re right.”
DA: “There was like an invisible bubble around him.”
PM: “He just seemed… you know, in his efforts to get into the spirit of it, I think he put his own back up a little bit. He made himself really a bit sort of stiff and awkward and tense about it. I mean, sometimes it’s patent you’ve got a terrible actor in front of you, ‘cause they’re not giving anything back. That wasn’t Eric’s problem. Eventually, when he got into it, he was good. He was brilliant. And you hit the ball to him and he hit it straight back. I think… he wasn’t relaxed. He never relaxed, did he?”
DA: “He came in after we’d, I think, been shooting for three weeks. He came in and changed the atmosphere.”
PM: “I mean, that was the thing: it’s hard to come into something… you know, I don’t mean to rub it in, but it mitigated the guy. But no, he put his foot in it, didn’t he, really?”
DA: “But when I was crap, with you I could say, ‘Hah, that was just total crap!’ And we could laugh about it and fix it or you would take a line – ha! – which did happen once… I don’t know what the line was, but we were trying to get into the TARDIS and there was some motorcycle cop that drove into it and it was some silly line that I had to get in, and I was just saying it wrong every time and you just took it from me! But with someone like Eric, where there’s sort of this distance, you would never think of saying anything… It’s not our place, anyway. But I can certainly call my own crap!”
Looking back, what do you think of the TV Movie?
PM: “I’ve never seen it. I rarely watch things [that I’m in]. I’ve certainly never watched that one. You can’t really engage with things… well, I can’t, anyway. I like to remember doing them. I can remember it really well. At least there’s a period, which usually elapses and then you think, ‘Oh f*** it, I’ll watch it,’ and then it’s just like looking at holiday snaps. You go, ‘Oh God, yeah, remember when we were at that guy’s house?’”
DA: “I was going to try to watch it before I came out here, because I knew I was going to have to, kind of, bone up on my Doctor Who stuff, but I didn’t get the chance to and I’m kind of glad. I don’t really respond well to watching myself. I don’t like it. The next time you’re in front of the camera, you sort of see yourself in your head and it’s, like, gross. Ewww! It’s not good.”
PM: “Didn’t we go to a screening? I remember, in Los Angeles, there was a screening, wasn’t there?”
DA: “Yes. I walked out.”
PM: “Me too. I saw a bit of it and then… where was it? The Directors Guild or something like that.”
The Directors Guild of America.
DA: “It was a huge thing. That’s where I said ‘brilliant’ a hundred times! How can I forget? Yeah, I walked out. I stayed in until the lights went down, I sat at the back and then left.”
PM: “Recently, in California [at LA's Gallifrey convention], I met Philip Segal [the TV Movie's producer] again. I’d not seen him in a while. We were doing a Q and A on stage, and I could remember… I mean I hadn’t forgotten much.”
I have to ask about the kiss. The Doctor had never snogged on screen before…
PM: “Was that a big deal? I can’t remember.”
It was at the time.
DA: “I didn’t know it was, but I read about it and went. “What?!”
PM: “I just remember thinking, why don’t we do this more? And, like, Segal was going, ‘No, man! No!’ As if it would cleave the Earth in two or something! I didn’t realise that it was such a big deal that Doctor Who had never kissed anybody.”
DA: “Yeah, a really big deal. He’s supposed to be asexual, he’s an alien… They were also taking issue with the fact that, at one point, I say, ‘Er – he’s British!’ They went so mad. I didn’t know.”
PM: “So we were quite innocent. Ha!”
DA: “Yeah. I figured you probably knew more than I did. But maybe you didn’t?”
PM: “I just remember them going, ‘No tongues! Keep your mouth closed!’ And I was, like, ‘What?! I’ve come all this way to keep my mouth closed when I bloody kiss this girl?’”
DA: “There was somebody who defended the snog, who actually said, he said, um –”
PM: “She took advantage of him?”
DA: “No, he said, ‘C’mon, it’s the 90s!’ It was brilliant to know that there was somebody out there who went, ‘Wait a minute…’”
PM: “But we had to have one foot on the floor, didn’t we?”
DA: “Yes, we did.”
One foot on the floor?
DA: “It’s the thing about, in the olden days, you couldn’t have both feet off the floor when you were in bed. You had to keep one foot on the floor. You could do whatever, but you had to have that foot there.”
Aren’t screen kisses a bit awkward?
PM: “I think it was awkward for everybody but us. They were all flapping around like we’d just made history or something.”
DA: “It started to rain.”
PM: “Yeah, that’s right.”
DA: “I was, like, ‘Oh hell, my hair’s curling up, let’s just –’”
PM: “I was more like, ‘I hate this wig.’”
What about the wig, Paul? It wasn’t good, was it?
PM: “It wasn’t good. No, it wasn’t. Segal gets really annoyed… When I saw him recently, I said, ‘It was a terrible wig.’ He said, ‘That thing cost me –!’ But I hated it. I hated wearing it. Actors do. It’s like wearing false moustaches and beards. You don’t want something stuck to your head. It cramps your style.”
DA: “But you had, actually, a reaction – I don’t know if you remember this – to the glue.”
PM: “No, that was to the kiss.”
DA: “[Laughing] No! No! It was towards the end –”
PM: “It gave me crabs.”
DA: “[In hysterics] No! Oh my God! I’m freaking out. There was some kind of… your skin was… you were getting that thing taken off, and we’d been shooting forever, and you looked and you went, ‘Hey, look at my head! What’s happened?’ The make-up artist and I, we just couldn’t stop laughing. You were, like, ‘Piss off! My skin looks like this and you’re laughing!’”
PM: “We were tired by this point, right?”
DA: “It was just your reaction to it. It was brilliant. It really does mess your skin up. Eventually it starts to pick your skin off. I mean, it wasn’t funny that your skin was… that’s not funny, but…”
PM: “You know, I could have played it as a skinhead. You might correct me here – I’ve no idea what’s going on [with the new series] – but you bet your life Chris Eccleston will have short or shaved hair for this role. I bet. I bet that happens, ‘cause he won’t do it any other way.”
He’s the first skinhead Doctor Who.
PM: “You see, I could have done that.”
DA: “Hmm. You did look a little… scary with short hair.”
PM: “So what?”
DA: “I know, but –”
PM: “You got a problem with it? [Grins]”
DA: “I did. Ha! I don’t think people would have laughed at it, but –”
PM: “Nah, it could have been great. As it was, it was tiresome. Plus… oh, whatever. Stop whinging. But, like, it took an extra f***ing hour a day to get this thing on and get this thing off. And a wig will always look like a wig, ‘cause it’s got no movement. Whichever way you turn, this thing’s like a helmet. I had a helmet on. I’d never do it again. No more wigs.”
Why do you think the TV Movie wasn’t taken up as a series?
PM: “I can only imagine that some other pilot was preferred. It’s very competitive, isn’t it? I was under the impression that they didn’t make it into a series simply ‘cause it didn’t make the cut.”
DA: “They put us opposite – I just found this out – they put the airing of the movie in America opposite Roseanne, which was a huge hit.”
It was the Roseanne season finale.
DA: “Yeah, and he was having a heart attack – what was his name?”
PM: “Philip Segal?”
DA: “No! Hah, that’s funny. No, it was –”
PM: “John Goodman?”
DA: “Yeah, John Goodman’s character had a heart attack on that episode, so of course… it could of, I think, gotten a lot bigger viewership if they hadn’t scheduled it opposite Roseanne.”
PM: “That was the main frustration. They knew that if they could have seen it past that stage, if it had got a commission, its audience was there already – they could have built on the audience that existed already for it. It was already established. But it wasn’t to be.”
Are you surprised that Doctor Who is back in production?
PM: “Not in the slightest, for the same reason: that the audience, its fanbase, refuses to go away.”
But the established fanbase is only a fraction of what the new series needs in terms of viewing figures.
PM: “Yeah, I see that. But quite how the BBC view it in the light of their involvement in what happened eight years ago is interesting. Obviously they weren’t that chastened by the experience that they decided to shelve it forever. I’m not surprised at all that they’re having another stab at it, ‘cause it’s kind of iconic, isn’t it? I just wonder what kind of a departure stylistically it’s –”
DA: “They’re going to do the special effects, right?”
PM: “Yeah, they’re spending a lot of dough on it.”
DA: “That’s a big deal.”
PM: “Mmm. They’re saying, like, a million pounds an episode? That’s a hell of a lot of money, which is completely at odds with the production values of the original – they had, like, threepence halfpenny.”
The TV Movie had an enormous budget.
DA: “I thought that that was going to be the biggest problem – that we were going to be picking through the charm of the original. I mean, Sylvester [McCoy] was telling me stories about how, you know, bits and pieces of the set would start to fall while they were shooting and they just kept on shooting. It was, like, ‘Well, so what?’ They just didn’t have the budget to start again.”
PM: “Yeah, and you see these 50s American sci-fi flying saucer movies, and it’s obviously a saucer on a string, but it’s kitsch and it’s cult and people love that. There’s still even a market for that stuff. The earliest Doctor Whos are – what? – 1963, so it’s from that era, not from the modern era.”
DA: “So we’ll see. We’ll see if they can travel it into this, kind of, high-tech thing. I mean, we hardy got to experience it. I didn’t even see a Dalek.”
PM: “No. I saw a couple of design drawings for what would have been the Daleks. They looked good. So I think ours was a decent stab. In a way, I guess you could say it was some kind of halfway house.”
In what sense?
PM: “Well, between being British and being North American. It was a deliberate attempt to get the thing off the ground in America.”
DA: “A crossover.”
PM: “They never quite got there. I’m confident that, had it been commissioned, it would have done well. It would have found its feet. It would have taken a while, but it would have found its feet. And my kids would now be Canadians or something. So life’s weird. But no regrets.”
Would you like to have done the new series?
PM: “The BBC one? No. No, I don’t think so. I’ve had my shot.”
Hmm. Okay.
DA: [Raises a comedy eyebrow.]
PM: “What?”
DA: “Nothing.”
So if you’d been asked, you’d have said no?
PM: “I’d have said no, yeah. That said, at most of the conventions… well, both of the conventions that I’ve been to, when asked the same question prior to the series being announced, I dutifully said yes. But now I’m here to tell you that I would have turned it down, to concentrate on doing other things. Because I know, even from being Doctor Who for six weeks eight years ago, how all-encompassing it is, and you really do have to shove everything else to one side. As Chris will find out. If he doesn’t realise already.”
What do you make of Christopher Eccleston’s casting?
PM: “I think it’s brave. He’s a fantastic, intense actor. Very intense. Great-looking. Perfectly grounded. He can be quite scarily good. When I say brave… my first reaction on hearing… I was genuinely surprised. That’s one name I’d never have come up with. I think my first reaction was, ‘Right, so they’re going to elbow the comedy, then? They’re going to go into something darker and more serious,’ which I hate to say was what I was saying to Phil Segal eight years ago: ‘It’s a serious character, this. You can keep some laughs, but –’”
DA: “I loved the quick little quips. That was one of the things I loved most about it.”
PM: “Yeah, but Chris is no Mr Light Comedy. We may all be terribly surprised, but he’s more Ralph Fiennes than Rupert Everett, so to speak. Definitely. Which I don’t mind. That’s how I’d like to have played it. Camp’s okay, but it gets tiresome – for this actor, and I’m sure that Chris is the same.”
DA: “Uh huh. I don’t think we have enough of that in America – certainly not the kind of camp that you’re talking about. It’s there, but you have to find it.”
PM: “This is something that Eric Roberts was terrified about. Three or four days running, he was making sort of asides about me being – not my character, but me being – effeminate.”
DA: “I never realised that.”
PM: “Yeah, and how there was no way that he was going to be effeminate.”
Eric Roberts was the campest thing in the movie.
PM: “You said it. You’ve got to be careful what you wish for, eh? It’s a metaphor for life.”
DA: “Be careful what you fear.”
PM: “I’d be surprised if it survives, that sort of knock-about campness, into the new series.”
Recently, both of you have got more involved in Doctor Who fandom. What do you make of the fans?
PM: “They’re all teddy bears!”
DA: “They really are. They’re sweethearts. They’re sweet. Extremely polite and gracious. It really made me happy to be around them.”
PM: “That was the right answer, Daphne.”
DA: “I’m not kidding. I almost started crying a couple of times at how sweet they were. I’m a wuss.”
Some of them know more about you than you do.
PM: “That’s the spooky thing. When you first put yourself among them, you’ve got to get used to that: that they know everything and you know nothing. Once you accept that, it’s actually a fairly good deal. Initially, most of us are fairly shy and we don’t want to go up on stage trying to answer questions on subjects that we know, like, nothing about and everybody else in the room has, like, an encyclopaedic knowledge of. But the good thing is, they help you out.”
DA: “Yeah, they’ll fill in the blanks for you.”
PM: “It keeps ‘em off the streets.”
DA: “I kind of get grossed out sometimes. I can sit and listen to certain actors talk about acting and it’s, like, not an ego thing, whereas I know that I sound like I think I know everything. And I don’t.”
PM: “I’ve met hundreds of them that are into tailoring.They’re wearing the gear. For me, that’s funny. It’s a hoot. I like that.”
DA: “I met a kid dressed as Sylvester McCoy.”
PM: “Really?”
DA: “Yeah. He had Sylvester’s jacket on.”
Who are you two fans of?
PM: “Fans? I don’t know. I’m not made like that. I mean, sports stars, yeah, ‘cause I’m into sport, but all within reason.”
DA: “Mother Teresa. Isn’t she brilliant?”
PM: “Another right answer. You’re like a Miss World contestant, aren’t you? ‘I like sowing, cookery, modern dance, world peace…’”
DA: “I don’t give interviews often! Ha – I can see why. I just go, ‘Brilliant!’ That’s all I say. Heh! That’s so funny! Oh God, I ache.”
Benjamin Cook
