Dr Who Matt Smith long way from Tardis as he plays Christopher Isherwood in BBC drama (original) (raw)
Nudity, Nazis and the Doctor: Matt Smith is a long way from the Tardis as he plays louche writer Christopher Isherwood in new BBC drama
Landing a role as coveted as Doctor Who is every young actor’s dream. When it happened to Matt Smith in 2009, he was instantly catapulted to the top of every casting agent’s list.
With his kitchen table groaning under the weight of fresh scripts and his phone buzzing with offers, Smith was surely spoilt for choice as he pondered how best to follow up his star turn as the Doctor. Should he play it safe or go out on a limb?
All is revealed tomorrow night when he returns to the screen as the louche novelist and playwright Christopher Isherwood in the BBC2 biopic Christopher And His Kind.
Isherwood’s 1939 book Goodbye To Berlin, based on his experiences in Weimar Berlin, inspired the musical Cabaret. His 1964 novel A Single Man was turned into a film last year for which Colin Firth was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar.
Acting up: Matt Smith has left the Tardis to play a much more serious character in the form of Christopher Isherwood in a drama that is being shown on BBC2 tomorrow night
The BBC2 drama explores Isherwood’s time in the decadent pre-war German capital and sees Smith notch up a number of gay flings after escaping from repressive English society and an overbearing mother. No chance of typecasting here, then.
‘I want to pop up in other dramas from time to time so I’m not just associated with the Doctor,’ says Smith.
‘And in case anyone’s wondering, I don’t think it matters if a confirmed heterosexual — as I am — plays a gay man. If you’re in a science-fiction series, such as Doctor Who for the sake of argument, and you’re playing an alien, you don’t actually have to be one to be credible, do you?
‘Instead, you do your research for the part. In my case I grilled all of my gay friends to make myself more convincing as Isherwood. I also watched a lot of film footage of him, and I have tried to carry off the way he moved and spoke.
‘Just having to think in a different way to the Doctor was a very interesting challenge for me. The Doctor is based on movement and madness, Isherwood on stillness. I hope people watching it will quickly forget they are watching the Doctor.’
OUTTAKE
Lindsay Duncan, who plays Isherwood's mother, also appeared in one of David Tennant's last outings as the Doctor - and even got a lift in the Tardis
It’s a role about as far removed from the family-friendly Doctor as possible, but the 28-year-old actor is anything but po-faced about it.
‘It taught me a lot,’ he tells me gravely. ‘For a start, the script required me to kiss a man who hadn’t shaved, so I finally understood the true agony for a woman of stubble rash. It’s a very justified complaint from womankind because it really gets you very red and itchy.’
So IS he worried some Doctor Who fans might be horrified when they see their hero playing a dissolute boulevardier? ‘No, because it’s just pretend,’ he says.
‘I’d finished the first Doctor Who series and I wanted to do something else before the next one started. I loved the script, I loved Isherwood’s story and I loved the fact that he was as far removed from the real me as could be.
‘So when I saw that I’d have to be naked and kiss some guys, I was very committed and gung-ho about it.
‘And that’s another lesson I learned when it came to filming. There’s a world of difference being naked in a love scene with another man, rather than a woman. But I tried to go for it wholeheartedly and it was an interesting experience.’
He might not have had any qualms about the public getting a glimpse of the Doctor’s derriere, but the BBC did.
Director Geoffrey Sax, who was also responsible for the controversial, award-winning Tipping The Velvet, which focused on a lesbian love affair, was given strict instructions.
‘They told me I must not show Doctor Who’s bare bottom,’ says Sax. ‘They were quite firm about that, even though Matt was playing an entirely different character.
‘They have invested a lot in him as the 11th Doctor and were due to make a second series with him, so they were obviously anxious to protect their property.
‘So I said: “OK, you won’t see his bare behind.” ’
Sax did wonder, though, what young Doctor Who fans would make of it. ‘It will be shown after the watershed and I hope parents will have the sense not to let their children watch it.
Co-star: Imogen Poots plays Jean Ross in the drama, who was the star who inspired him to write the Sally Bowles character, which was later portrayed by Liza Minnelli in the film Cabaret
‘I’ve got two daughters of 12 and 13, and I certainly wouldn’t let them see it. They always want to see what Daddy’s done, but not this. Not until they’re older.
‘My rule was that nothing would be gratuitous in it. Isherwood went to Berlin primarily because he wanted to have a freer life and because homosexuality was illegal in Britain at that time.
‘Over in Berlin, until the Nazis took over it was much more liberal. We wanted to show that.’
Isherwood, considered one of the brightest literary stars of his generation, finds himself intoxicated by Berlin’s turbulent political and social life in the programme.
He has been invited over by his close friend the poet W.H. Auden, played by Pip Carter. The hedonistic Berlin cabaret scene is in full swing when young and wide-eyed Isherwood, unable to speak a word of German, first stays with Auden.
As he writes down all that he sees, he falls in love with a roadsweeper called Heinz, played by Douglas Booth, who previously starred on TV as Boy George in Worried About The Boy.
Sax, who recently directed Halle Berry in the film Frankie & Alice, was pleasantly surprised when Smith assured him he was up for even the most daring of scenes: ‘His attitude was: “I’m in bed with W.H. Auden? How fantastic is that!”
‘Matt didn’t even insist on having a closed set for the naked scenes. It makes things easier to film with that kind of attitude. It breeds a confidence on the set.’
OUTTAKE
The actual Dolphin clock that sat on Isherwood's desk during his years in Berlin appears in the drama - his partner lent it to the production as a prop
Sax says he was impressed with the way Smith immediately took on the challenge of playing a character like Isherwood. ‘He did his homework scrupulously. When we met for the first time, we sat in a coffee shop and he did the character for me, — adopting the Isherwood voice there and then.
‘Fortunately, we were on our own, otherwise we might have got some strange looks.’
Was he worried about convincing us that Smith wasn’t a genial time traveller, but a controversial literary legend?
‘At first I thought, this is either the bravest, most brilliant stroke the BBC could pull, or it’s insane.
‘But, to be honest, it didn’t worry me. I’d seen some of Matt’s previous work. I’d had my eye on him and I thought he was a really interesting young actor. So I assumed by the very fact that he’d agreed to do it that he was comfortable.
‘Within two minutes of meeting him I knew what we were going to do was something very exciting. There’s a lot of talent around at the moment, and he’s one of those people who can be Doctor Who one minute and then something completely different.’
The streets of Belfast were used to recreate Thirties Berlin. Giant swastikas were hung from the buildings and extras dressed in the brown shirts of the Hitler Youth to march beneath posters advertising Marlene Dietrich’s film The Blue Angel, in which she plays a nightclub singer.
Filming was almost brought to a halt at one point when the Ulster Unionists protested against the swastikas. In the end, the banners were allowed to go up only early in the morning and late at night, severely restricting filming.
Inspiration: Christopher Isherwood's 1939 work Goodbye to Berlin inspired the film Cabaret while his 1964 book A Single Man was turned into a film last year
Smith’s floppy hair is slicked back Thirties-style for the role and he wears the sort of tailored waistcoat and jacket favoured by young English gentlemen of that period.
It’s a look that’s very different from the stylised Doctor he created last year, but in his everyday life the actor says he doesn’t need to go to such lengths to throw the Doctor’s fans off his scent. ‘I can still do the things I normally do,’ he says. ‘I wear hoodies if I want to stay anonymous.’
Smith, who is dating model Daisy Lowe, kept a diary throughout the production of Christopher And His Kind. He says: ‘Just the process of writing and thinking like a writer helped me play the part. I found myself phrasing things like Isherwood, the way he cuts his words — he was such a lover of language.’
He is also helped by an impressive cast. Lindsay Duncan (The Sinking Of The Laconia) plays Isherwood’s domineering snob of a mother, Kathleen. Imogen Poots (28 Weeks Later) plays Jean Ross, the struggling singer who provided Isherwood with the inspiration for the Sally Bowles character portrayed by Liza Minnelli in the 1972 film Cabaret.
As part of his research for the role, Smith went to California to meet artist Don Bachardy, Isherwood’s long-term partner, at the home they had shared in Santa Monica until Isherwood’s death in 1986. ‘Just witnessing the affection Don had for him and being in the place where Christopher lived and wrote was very helpful,’ Smith says.
Bachardy, 76, came to London to attend a Bafta screening of the drama and was delighted with it: ‘I felt that he really had captured the essence of Christopher.’
A new series of Doctor Who is due to start in April. Some scenes were filmed in the U.S., and the dapper Doctor is seen wearing a stetson.
Smith says: ‘Without giving any secrets away, I can hint that the Doctor will face a terrifying new enemy. It’s one of the greatest monsters, not just during my short time on the show, but in its whole history. It’s an absolute cracker.
‘And the Doctor and companion Amy (Karen Gillan) are going to be faced with some crucial choices about their relationship, who they are and why they are important together.’
He predicts that viewers will find some scenes harrowing. But possibly not quite as harrowing as some will find the controversial scenes in tomorrow’s drama; in which their favourite new Doctor proves just what a versatile actor he is.
Christopher And His Kind is on BBC2 tomorrow at 9.30pm. A 1969 Omnibus, Christopher Isherwood: A Born Foreigner, is on BBC4 tomorrow at 11pm and Cabaret is on BBC2 on Monday at 11.20pm.