Fresh Air - At 3 Years Old, David Tennant Knew He Wanted To Be Doctor Who

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

When David Tennant was three, he told his parents he wanted to grow up to play Doctor Who on TV. As a teen, he held onto that dream: "I was quite weedy and I wore glasses and I had a terrible haircut, so all those things still felt possible in the world of the Doctor. There was something about that character I could be," Tennant tells Sam Briger. He was Doctor Who for five years and, it turns out, he was suited for lots of other characters–including villains and detectives, and the lead in many Shakespeare plays.Later, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new series Dying for Sex, starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

These days, there is a lot of news. It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community. Consider This from NPR is a podcast that helps you make sense of the news. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, backstory, and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terri Gross. Today's guest, David Tennant, is best known as an actor, but he also has an interview podcast, which is now in its third season. Some of this year's guests include Stanley Tucci, Ben Schwartz, and Rosamund Pike. Tennant spoke with Fresh Air's

Sam Brigger. Here's Sam. Scottish actor David Tennant's lists of accomplishments is as long as it has varied. Perhaps best known for playing Doctor Who, he is also considered one of the finest Shakespearean actors of his generation, as you can see now in the film of his Macbeth, which was staged in 2023, with Tennant playing the lead in Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth. It's now streaming on MarqueeTV. He has also memorably played Hamlet and Richard II. You probably watched him as the haunted and brooding detective in the British crime drama Broadchurch and maybe even in the American

adaptation called Grace Point where he plays more or less the same role but with an American accent. David Tennant has also been his share of screen villains, including real-life serial killer Dennis Nilsson in the mini-series Des, Kilgrave in the Marvel TV show Jessica Jones, one of the most repugnant characters I have ever seen, as well as the smaller but memorable lip-licking Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He also hosted the BAFTA Awards for the past two years, Great Britain's version of the Oscars. This year, opening the ceremony,

singing the song 500 Miles in a bespoke black jacket and kilt suit. And he was hilarious to watch playing a version of himself in the streaming comedy Staged with Michael Sheehan, one of the few good things to come out of the COVID pandemic. David Tennant also has a podcast called David Tennant Does a Podcast With, where you fill in the name of the guest from that episode, often an actor he has worked with. A third season of the podcast released this year,

and while we might have said, hey, David Tennant, stay in your lane, there's enough long format interview shows out there, instead we decided that this would be a good opportunity to have him on our long format interview show to ask him about his life and career. So David Tennant, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you very much for having me. You did two seasons of your podcast ending in 2020, but then you came back last month with the third season. Why did you come back now? There was a certain sense of there were a few people I had either meant to interview or had sort of got to know in the interim. And I thought I would have

naturally interviewed them when I'd done this podcast before. So maybe now is an opportunity to, to kind of scoop them up. It really has, has always been the case with the podcast. It's something I've done. I don't mean to minimize it, but it's almost been a hobby, like a sideline, like a sort of thing I've done for pleasure when I've had a moment. It's never been my principal job. So it was just a sort of moment of opportunity. When you go into these interviews, like do you have a specific agenda? Like are you when you're like, oh Olivia Coleman, I've always wanted to know this about her, or do you sometimes think about things in your own career which have puzzled you that gives you an opportunity to ask someone else who does

the same work? Yeah there's certainly, there's definitely a bit of that, a bit of there are some slightly odd things about being in this profession and what it sort of does to your life outside the work that is the sort of bit you don't get trained for at a drama school. You know one of the sort of side effects of being successful as an actor I suppose is that you lose an element of anonymity and I found that personally quite challenging when it happened to me. So I'm always quite intrigued to know

how others have dealt with that or are dealing with that or kind of characterize what that does to them and the people around them. But it's a mixture of things. You're also just, again, if it's someone you know, you're often interested in sort of celebrating them and wanting the world to know them and understand what's likeable about them, because there's a sort of delight in celebrating that to the public somehow. So it's always, yes, it's always a mixture of impulses, I think.

Pete Slauson Speaking about coping with being a celebrity, you tell a story that someone asked you for an autograph while you were naked in a shower at the gym. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, and moments like that are quite peculiar. Yes, but perhaps that's stating the obvious. But just, I'm always quite intrigued to know if other people have had similar experiences and how they, or how they would have dealt with experiences like that.

Because I think it's quite, it's a bit of a sort of club that you can't really expect any sort of sympathy for because it's a very privileged position to be in. But it's, you know, it's a complicated one. It's one I struggle with because you're also very aware if someone wants to have a moment's interaction with you that they're sort of, that moment for them is representing all the work you might have done that has meant something to them.

So that's a hugely, it's quite a precious moment for someone else, whereas you might be just thinking, I'm going to be late for, uh, disappointment that, uh, having a bad day or something. Oh, you're having a bad day. Yeah. And of course that you're not really going to make the situation better by explaining to someone why this is an inappropriate moment. Uh, if, if they're not seeing that for themselves, I draw you back to the moment in the shower. That man obviously didn't understand why I was finding this peculiar and odd. So it became simpler to sort of carve a signature into what was the mulch of the piece of paper that he was now holding under a shower. And sort of he said, thank you very much and went on

his way. Well, I wanted to talk about another version of David Tennant that you've played on three seasons of the show, staged with Michael Sheen. Oh yeah, oh yeah. This show largely takes place, at least it seems to, I don't know if it was filmed this way, but it's a series of Zoom calls between you and Michael Sheen and your respective spouses and other people,

at least in the first season, you're rehearsing this play during COVID, hoping that when the lockdown is over, you'll have this thing ready to go. And of course, that doesn't work out so well. So how did this show come about? It was an absolutely opportunistic pitch by a friend of, well, actually someone that my wife was at school with, who's a film producer called Finn Glenn, who we,

both George and I have worked with on various projects over the years. And a few days into that first lockdown, must have been March 2020, Finn phoned us up and went, I might have an idea of something we could make while we're all locked in our houses. It was entirely his baby. He went off, got a script written. We went off and enlisted Michael Sheen and Anna Lundberg, who were locked in their house in Wales. And between us, we just made one on spec. Simon Evans, who plays the director in the show,

is also the director and also wrote the script very quickly and very cleverly. Neither Michael nor Georgian or myself or Anna had met Simon, but we got to know him very well over Zoom. And it all happened. He was quite funny in the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I have to say that when I first heard about the show,

I didn't think I was going to enjoy watching it. Like, we were- I know, it sounds desperately dull. And also it was reflecting the way we were all living. We were all living our lives on Zoom. And the last thing I wanted to do was watch a TV show about Zoom. However, it quickly won me over because it's

so funny. I thought we would play a scene from the show. Oh, good. And to set this up, Michael Sheehan is irritated with you at this point. That's that track. Because originally you were going to do this play with someone else, so he was the second choice. So you guys are doing a reading and I think we'll also hear Simon Evans in this and he's desperate to keep things on track, but Michael Sheehan is basically trying to pick a fight with you and you have

had a line where you use the word heard and he's questioning how you're saying that word. So let's hear that. What's wrong with my words? I'm struggling to believe them. There's a lot going on. A lot going on, okay. Would you try something for me? Oh sure, happy to, yeah.

Is that okay Simon? I'd rather be just pushed on actually. One take a sec, just give me, I wanna be heard again? I wanna be heard. Simon? I thought that was great. You don't think he sounds cartoonish?

Cartoonish? I've thought it for a while now. Absolutely not, no I don't. David, it's with you, I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. Please, can we carry on? I want to be heard.

I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. I want to be heard. It's gotta have something behind, I want to be heard. It's gotta have something behind it.

No, it's gotta come from somewhere. Just because you're mumbling doesn't make it good. I speak the same language as you. You don't have to be... You're barely speaking though, you're barely speaking, you're basically whispering it. I want to be heard. Let's pretend we're all human beings. Yeah, we have ears that need to receive the vibrations. I mean it's not a hearing thing, it's a sort of a feeling thing. You know, what I'm doing makes sense and what you're doing is a sort of weird... It might sound weird to you because you won't have been used to hearing that coming out of yourself. It's so effective effective if you don't mind me saying worry

How is that interesting Simon that if you spend a career? Such a stilted sort of artificial way then hearing something that's truthful can sound affected you That's a scene from the show Staged with Michael Sheehan and our guest David Tennant. David Tennant, there's so many times watching that show where I just laughed out loud. You guys have such a great rapport. Can you talk about the version of yourself

that you're playing in this show? I think we quite enjoyed playing awful versions of ourselves. So we were pretty happy to lean into that. Interestingly, Simon said that one of the things he did as he was writing it was listen to the episode of my podcast with Michael Sheen. I don't know what that says about, I mean, Michael's this sort of rather pompous, rather grand character, rather arrogant actor. I'm a sort of whining, miserabilist. Well, you're described as Weasley at one point. I'm a sort of whining, miserablest.

Well, you're described as Weasley at one point. Yes, I am described as Weasley. And I don't know where that came from, but it certainly seemed to fit well enough for us to lean pretty hard into it and rather enjoy leaning into it. I mean, even listening to that, when I hear bits of it back, it does make me smile. I suppose because it reminds me of a moment in time where there wasn't an awful lot going on other than home schooling our children, which was a real fresh hell that we were all trying to catch up with and

being locked in our house. And although, you know, I didn't, in many ways, I didn't dislike lockdown at all because I was very happy to be locked in my house and kept away from other human beings, be in my own family. It was certainly lovely to have that release and that creative release particularly. Pete Well, it's so funny, just your look on the show, you just look stupefied with boredom. Pete Your mouth is hanging open. Pete Well, it was a particular time, wasn't it? Pete It certainly was. One of the funny site gags is that you keep getting caught drinking out

of this mug with your face on it. And they keep saying, is that you on that mug? And you deny it. Yes. Lots of bits of that were sort of inspired by what was happening around us. We do happen to have a couple of mugs in my house that may or may not have my face on them. And I can't remember quite the origin of that particular gag, but it was either we were on a Zoom discussing what we were going to do and I had the mug there or I brought it and maybe I suggested it one day. And anyway, it became a sort of long running gag that runs throughout three seasons, I think. Yeah. So you said you were home, you and your wife, Georgia, have five kids. I have two kids and it was very tough to sort of keep them busy, keep them on their schooling

during COVID. What was it like with five? Like was your house just crazy all the time? We're fortunate that we have a fair amount of space and we've got a bit of outdoor space, which I think it would have killed us without that. But yes, of course it was challenging. Our youngest was brand new. She was born towards the end of 2019. So we had a very small baby with all the pleasures and difficulties that that brings. Three who were in school, that was the real hell, the home schooling. Just trying to be the sort of manager come teacher that keeps them on track was very, very hard. And then our eldest, his 18th birthday came three, four days after lockdown was called.

So his big 18th birthday celebration was spent staring at us over the kitchen table. I still feel like he got slightly shortchanged there. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your work doing Shakespeare. Your version of Macbeth that I think was originally staged in 2023 is now available to stream on Marquee TV and you star with Kush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth. So this is a very minimalist staging. There's like the stage itself is pretty much like this white platform and the audience is sort of around the stage. And I noticed watching the film of it that all the audience members were wearing headphones. Why was that?

It was one of the Max Webster, our director, it was one of his very earliest ideas. He was very, he was fascinated with the idea of Macbeth as a soldier. He'd done a production of Henry V, where they'd looked a lot into the actuality of being a soldier who goes to war, what that might do to you, ideas around PTSD and shell shock and he talked to people who'd experienced that and the idea that one would hear voices, one would imagine things were happening that weren't. And he sort of took the idea of PTSD and put it onto Macbeth and it kind of fits remarkably well. I mean, who knows what Shakespeare's experience was with veterans from whatever wars were around at the time. But it feels like it all

tracks with how modern day veterans describe some of the things they struggle with after tours of duty. And he started working with a sound designer called Gareth Fry who'd done other shows where the audiences all wore headphones and you can do extraordinary things then to the audience's experience because for a start you can whisper very quietly and you can move where that whisper is. So if you can do that for the audience they get an understanding of perhaps what's happening inside Macbeth's very troubled brain. So you could, particularly when so much of what Macbeth says is in soliloquy, which is an address to the audience. I think it was just using a tool that was available and

adding to that you have a sort of soundscape which is happening the whole time. You're mixing in the music, you're mixing in sound effects that may or may not be live on stage in front of you, which again is adding to that sense of disconcertion and what's real, what isn't real. So it was a sort of conceptual way of telling this very well told story, perhaps in a slightly new, quite modern way, while still being entirely faithful to the text that Shakespeare wrote. Let's hear what one of those soliloquy sounds like. This is the famous tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow soliloquy from the end of the play, and you have just discovered that Lady

Macbeth has been killed. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted full the way to dusty death. Out, brief candle. Life's fair a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and flexes out upon the stage and then has had no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Okay, so that's from the film version of Macbeth. So I'm wearing headphones now, so I feel like I'm sort of experiencing what that would have been like for the audience because you are really whispering. And I guess I was wondering, like if you were doing that in a more traditional theater sense and you had to project to the cheap seats, like how do you approach that same speech in those sort of two different scenarios? It's hard to know because, you know, when you prepare a production like that,

you kind of know what your version of it needs to be. I've never heard that back, so it's hard. I don't know, all I'm hearing is what I would have done differently. But... What would you have done differently? Oh, I don't know. I think that speech in particular, was probably out of the whole play.

That was sort of never quite the same twice. So you've got a version of it. And how many times did you do the play? Like 150 or something. So every time it feels different. Yes. I think that speech more than any, because it comes near the end. It's the probably the most emotional moment. It's the moment where Lady Macbeth's gone. He knows it's all over. It's really just a case of how he's going to go down rather than if he will. And it was particularly in our staging, it was right up the back. I was sort of sitting very much my own. I couldn't, the lighting was such that it was, I was in a pool of darkness. And I sort of tried to dare myself every night

to kind of find it, that particular moment, sort of afresh each time. Obviously that's what you're always trying to do. It's easier with something like Shakespeare because the words are pretty bottomless and they have lots of different available meanings and that's why actors love doing it so much because on performance 150 you can suddenly hear a line that you thought you knew inside out you can sort of hear it in a brand

new way and that's obviously that's a thrill and also a bit frustrating she's gonna go oh that's how I should have done that. Can I go back and do the first 100 performances again, please? Our guest is David Tennant. He'll be back after a short break. I'm Sam Brigger and this is Fresh Air. On the latest bonus episode of Fresh Air,

an interview with Yoko Ono from 1989. She says that she became famous for her marriage to John Lennon, but her own avant-garde art wasn't taken seriously then. That was the kind of natural feeling people had. I think, well, she's Mrs. Lennon. What's she doing anyway? I mean, she doesn't have to work anymore, you know? To listen, sign up for Fresh Air Plus at plus.npr.org slash fresh air. Oh, hey there. I'm Brittany Luce.

And I don't know, maybe this is a little out of pocket to say, but I think you should listen to my podcast. It's called It's Been A Minute, and I love it. And I think you will too. Over the past couple months, over 100,000 new listeners started tuning in. Find out why. Listen to the It's Been A Minute podcast from NPR today. The tech in your pocket. Science is approachable because it's already part of your life. Come explore these connections on the shortwave podcast from NPR. Hi, this is Molly C.V. Nesbitt, digital producer at Fresh Air.

And this is Terri Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive.

So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. So David, you grew up outside of Glasgow in Paisley. Your father was a Presbyterian minister. So, do you remember your father's sermons? Were they fiery or more contemplative? Oh, he could get quite fiery. Yes, he was quite a performer, my dad. There was definitely a bit of an old ham about him. And yes, I wasn't firing brimstone so much, but although he could get there, he could get a little bit,

he would thump the pulpit now and again. But no, he was definitely a performer, and he was a very good preacher, actually. People would ask him to come and guest preach in various places. I think he was very well thought of and he was very loved. He was a very good minister. His congregation liked him and he was kind and he was patient and all the things that I guess you have to be in that job. But he was a good preacher, yeah. Well, he must have been because for a year he served as the moderator of the General

Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which is basically the highest position in the Church. The highest position, but on a revolving yearly basis because the Church of Scotland is built on the idea that there should be no hierarchy. So you take a turn and you step back again. He also had a TV show called That's the Spirit that he co-hosted. What was that show like? Did you ever go to the set?

I did actually, yes. It was on Scottish television. But yes, he did on a Sunday afternoon in Scotland, you could see my dad in That's the Spirit. It was a sort of religious magazine program. Um, so he would, you know, he would go and meet could see my dad and that's the spirit. It was a sort of religious magazine program. So he would, you know, he would go and meet a community project. He would do a little bit to camera where he gave a little message for the day. He'd do interviews with people

who were doing interesting or important things in the world of, I suppose, divinity or outreach or whatever it was. But yeah, he did that for quite a few years. And I remember sitting off camera and watching it happen a couple of times. Yeah. I have a hard time believing the story, but it's been told many times. So, Oh, oh, come on. What's this?

Well, it's the age of three, you told your family that you wanted to be an actor because you wanted to play Dr. Who. Which is the which is the bit you find most implausible about that story because I have thought. Well, first of all, just the wish fulfillment that you were able to achieve in your adulthood playing one of the most famous Dr. Who's. But also, like, did you at the age of three understand that Dr. Who was an actor? Like, did you want to act as Dr. Who? Did you want to be Dr. Who? Matthew 14 This is the bit that now having had my own children, I can think, three? Really? Could

I have been three? Because it does feel like quite a complicated thought process, doesn't it? But I can date it because I, you know, this was in the times before home video recorders. So I know that I watched John Pertwee turn into Tom Baker on Doctor Who and I can date it and it's 1974 so I was three years old. Maybe they repeated it like a year later because sometimes they did that. So maybe I was four. But I know that it was then, and I know that that led to a conversation with my parents. And you're absolutely right that it was a conversation where I learnt what the difference between a character in a television program and an actor was. But in that moment, I understood what that concept was and decided that's what I wanted to do. So despite how implausible it seems, I know what that concept was and decided that's what I wanted to do. So

despite how implausible it seems, I know that it's true. Do you remember what was so captivating about the show to you? Something about that show and the combination of elements. Certainly that central character always fascinated me. I just thought he was brilliant. I just thought he was cool, he was clever, he wasn't, he sort of, he was dressed in sort of brilliant, cool, mad clothes, but he looked like a normal human. And I think that was quite important to me as a fairly geeky young child. I didn't imagine I could ever aspire to be Superman or the Incredible Hulk or you know I was sort of quite weedy and I wore glasses and I had a terrible haircut. So all those

things still felt possible in the world of The Doctor. There was something about that character that I could be. I also loved, it's a brilliant and constructed show in that you don't know where they're going to land each time. Every time that the TARDIS lands, where is it? What's the mystery? There's a whole new set of characters to get. There's a whole and the monsters. What's the monster going to be this week? What's going to come around that corner and how scary is it going to be and what a thrill all that was. So it was, I know it was, I was obsessional about it. Pete So, where I grew up, you couldn't just get Dr. Who on the 13 channels that we had. Dr. John

Right. Pete I don't know if televisions were the same. Dr. John Well, you see 13 channels like you were starved. I mean, in Scotland, we had three channels. We had three. Pete But there was this other dial where you could, it was kind of like a radio dial where you could dial in, like, farther television stations. And sometimes I could dial in, like,

the out-of-state public television show that did have Doctor Who. And the things that I remember about it was first that it was really scary, like the monsters were scary and the theme music terrified me. But then the thing that I also noticed was like sometimes I would notice how cheaply made the show was, like why are all these sci-fi futuristic characters wearing clothes that look like they were borrowed from like Masterpiece Theater and then in all of these science fiction or futuristic sets, there

are always these drapes everywhere, like blocking off sections of the stage. I don't know. So those were my early memories of it. I listen, all of those memories are very accurate, I think. I don't think there's anything wrong with any of those observations you make. And I think I was aware of all that too, but I still either forgave it or reveled in it, its shortcomings, because actually the writing, they were incredibly well written. And those central performances, I remember Tom Baker who played the Doctor through most of my early childhood, it was a really magnificent performance. He was a properly

charismatic, mercurial, funny, funny, heroic. It was a brilliant performance as a piece of sort of mad acting. It was a wonder to behold. And that just scooped me up. How thrilling that you tuned in, you tuned your TV set to get so slightly illicit channels. It must have felt, it must have felt like you discovered wonderful secrets. It did feel that way. Well, let's hear you from Doctor Who. This is from your first big scene. You've just been regenerated. This would happen. The character would be reincarnated, which was a convenient way to have new actors play this role. And so you're reintroducing yourself to your traveling companion, played by Billy Piper, and some other characters,

and you're also surrounded by some pretty tough-looking aliens. Let's hear this. Now, first things first, be honest. How do I look? Um, different. Good different or bad different? Just different. Am I... Ginger?

No, you're just sort of brown. I wanted to be Ginger, I've never been Ginger. And you, Rose Tyler, fellow good you were, you gave up on me. Oh, that's rude. Is that what man I am now, am I rude? Rude and not Ginger? If I might interrupt. Yes, sorry.

Hello, red fella. Who exactly are you? I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here. I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here. I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here. I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here. I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here. I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here.

I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here. I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here. I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here. I'm the man who's been trying to get you to come here. I'm the man who's been. Rude and not ginger. If I might interrupt. Yes, sorry. Hello, great fella. Who exactly are you? Well, that's the question. I demand to know who you are! I don't know! See, that's the thing. I'm a doctor, but beyond that, I just don't know.

I literally do not know who I am. It's all untested. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy? Right on misery? Life and soul? Right-handed? Left-handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a goblet. That's our guest David Tennant as Dr. Who in his first big scene. So you're asking you, like, who am I there? One of the things that I really liked about your portrayal of the doctor was this like unbridled enthusiasm that you brought to the character. But you know, here you are at this point, you've been classically trained, you went to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Dance, and now you're playing this important British pop figure. How did all of the things that you had learned and the ways that you've trained help you sort of embody this role? I think that's a very good question. I don't know. I mean, it's one of those parts that has

a lot of cultural baggage about it, but it also, the whole, the idea of regeneration where one actor takes over from the next, you're given a bit of a blank sheet. The Doctor has certain immovable truths about them, but you're not expected to do what the last one did. You're expected to bring your own version of it. You just have to find yourself in it, I suppose. You just have to kind of chuck yourself at it and see what you get. And of course, it was written by Russell T. Davis, who's one of the great television writers of our time

and wrote it with sort of a bit like himself. I mean, Russell has a wonderful gift of the gab about him. He can talk and he's funny and he's quick and he's probably the cleverest person in most rooms and that's kind of how he writes The Doctor. So if you just kind of look to plug into that energy, filter it through yourself and hope that that produces something that's kind of endearing and not smug and annoying. Probably some people did find it smug and annoying but hopefully most people found it charming and funny. I think it's important that the Doctor is funny because he uses wit to undermine some of the worst creatures that the universe can throw at him.

That's part of what's glorious about that character is that he can be funny in times of crisis. And that's his cool. He's very uncool in many ways, but he's got that swagger, that ability to undermine everything with a gag or with a twinkle. So I didn't ponder all that. It's quite interesting listening back to that through headphones now. It feels quite green and quite squeaky to me. Well, it's pretty remarkable how much the show has given you again. Like it's sort of this great wish fulfillment. You also met your wife, Georgia, kind of on the show. She actually played your daughter in an episode.

Yes, but listen, time is very relative when you're a Time Lord. And she's a little bit younger than me. She's not that much younger than me. She's an adult character in the show. She's an adult character, yes, exactly. And George's father, your father-in-law, was a different incarnation of Doctor Who. That's right, yeah. He was number five.

I mean, I watched him as a kid. He became the Doctor when I was about 11. So he was absolutely someone that I drew pictures of in sketchbooks, yeah. That has just added to how odd the whole thing is that I've ended up being part of this show that I grew up obsessed with. Our guest is actor David Tennant.

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with me is the supervillain Kilgrave from the Marvel TV show Jessica Jones and Kilgrave basically can have people do whatever he wants. He can just command them. He abuses his ability in very sadistic ways, taking away consent from women, like telling people like if I'm late carve your face off. Like and you know this character is charmless and like really repugnant. Can you talk about how you found a way to play him? You have to just go back to what's written. And I think why Jessica Jones as a series worked so well is because Melissa Rosenberg, who was the showrunner and her team of writers,

did something really quite remarkable, I think. It was a superhero show, Jessica Jobs, part of the Marvel universe. The Killgrave was known in the comic books as the Purple Man, and he's a character who in his first appearance wears a purple jumpsuit and is entirely purple, but has this ability that whatever he says, people have to obey him. So if he tells them to lie down in the street, they lie down in the street.

You know, and what could be quite a sort of simplistic, rather sort of schlocky comic book idea in the hands of the writers that we had became, as you have hinted, it became a story about consent and it became a story about emotional abuse and psychological abuse but it was also looking into what had caused Kilgrave to be this way and if you had that ability what would that do to your own psychology? So yes he's a monster and he does awful things and there's nothing, there's very little redeemable about him but I think we were also letting to understand

that with that ability all his life, how could he not be damaged by that? When he doesn't know if somebody does something because they want to or because he's told them to, how could he interact as a rational human being with anyone? And I think that was all there in the writing. So they created something really quite adult, quite difficult at times, quite complicated, but also manages, whilst absolutely being a superhero show, it manages not to be blithe or glib

about any of the things that it examines. And it's quite a tough watch at times, but I just felt very lucky that I ended up in in that Marvel show, because I think it really was an extraordinary piece of work. And that, you know, I was just a tiny part of that. When you're playing these roles that are like terrible people, like real life serial killers, or these villains, like, do you have to sort of like shrug them

off at the end of the day, or else you'll take them home with you? sort of like shrug them off at the end of the day, or else you'll take them home with you? Not really, not consciously. I think when I put the script down, I sort of, I leave it at work, but you'd probably have to ask Georgia. I mean, you probably have to ask the people that have to live through a project with you.

Yeah, yeah. Because I suppose things do sometimes kind of go in funny directions there have been a couple of times when George has said oh I'm glad that's over I didn't always like that version of you that you brought home and I don't come home as Kilgrave but I suppose you know there is an element of it's all pretend but if you're pretending particularly dark stuff, you are sort of trying to trick your brain into behaving in the ways that you might behave if certain awful things were happening. And that probably does have something of a cost on your real life. But

I've never felt it weighing particularly heavily, I don't think. But as I say, that's probably a sort of side interview with Georgia. Yeah, yeah. In the show stage, Michael Sheehan is often sort of poking fun a little bit of you being Scottish and you guys talk about haggis. Are there sort of stereotypical things about being a Scot that you sort of lean into besides wearing a kilt? It's funny, when I lived in Scotland, I had no interest in being Scottish, maybe because it was so ubiquitous. But when you're not there anymore, you do become a sort of unofficial ambassador for all things Scottish. And I do enjoy that greatly. I do love about Haggis. And it's, yeah, there's, there's of course, there's something self-consciously

pleasing about wearing a kilt at the BAFTAs and holding on to a bit of Scottishness and I'm sort of now patriotic and proud of Scotland in a way that I never really appreciated when I was when I was there. I love being Scottish, it's great. It gives you a calling card. It gives you a sense of self, for sure. Well, David Tennant, it's been a real pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for coming on Fresh Air. Thanks for having me. It's been an absolute delight. David Tennant spoke with Fresh Air's Sam Brigger. Tennant's podcast, called David Tennant Does

a Podcast With, is now in its third season. After we take a short break, our TV critic David Bianculli will review the new series, Dying for Sex, starring Michelle Williams. This is Fresh Air. At Planet Money, we'll take you from a race to make rum in the Caribbean. Our rum from a quality standpoint is the best in the world.

To the labs dreaming up the most advanced microchips. It's very rare for people to go inside. To the back rooms of New York's Diamond District. What, you're looking for the stupid guy here? They're all smart, don't worry about it. Planet Money from NPR. We go to the story and take you along with us wherever you get your podcasts. Since Donald Trump took office in January, a lot has happened.

The White House Budget Office ordered a pause on all federal grants and loans. The impact of the Trump administration's tariffs is already being felt. President Trump's efforts to radically remake the federal government. The MPR Politics Podcast covers it all. Keep up with what's happening in Washington and beyond with the MPR Politics Podcast. Listen every day. Washington and beyond with the MPR Politics podcast. Listen every day. Dying for Sex is a new FX on Hulu production with all eight episodes now streaming. It stars Michelle Williams from the Fablemen's and Blue Valentine. As a woman whose cancer returns after a period of dormancy,

it leads her on a quest to explore her sexual drive and passions in a new way. Dying for Sex is based on a real story and inspired by a podcast of the same name. Our TV critic David Bianculli says the Hulu series ends up being much deeper and more emotionally resonant than he expected. Here's his review. Dying for Sex, the new FX on Hulu miniseries

now streaming in its entirety, has a basic premise that reminded me a bit of Breaking Bad. The main character gets a diagnosis of terminal cancer and reacts in ways that are both unexpected and uncharacteristic. With Walter White in Breaking Bad, the high school science teacher played by Bryan Cranston, he opts to use his knowledge of chemistry

to make and sell crystal meth in order to provide a nest egg for the family he'll soon leave behind. With Molly, the long married woman played by Michelle Williams in Dying for Sex, she decides to embark on a quest to find a level of sexual satisfaction she's not yet experienced. Walter is breaking bad. Molly, at first glance, is breaking bad. Molly at first glance is breaking sexy. But though that skeletal outline makes Dying for Sex sound like a titillating black comedy, it's more than that. I can't stress enough how much this new series got to me. Yes, some of the sexual encounters and misadventures are very funny, but the emotions and characters

running throughout this series are so real and often so raw that though I laughed a lot at what I was watching, I also choked up a lot and really became caught up in the emotional lives of the show's characters. All of them. Dying for Sex is inspired by the story of a woman named Molly, who originally told her story in a 2020 podcast co-hosted by her best friend, Nikki. The relationship between Molly and Nikki is central to the miniseries from the very start,

when Nikki sees Molly sitting outside a bodega looking sad and asks her what's wrong. Molly is played by Michelle Williams. Nikki is played by Jenny Slate. You know how I had that pain in my hip that wouldn't go away? Uh-huh. It's cancer.

It's back. But you, it's been two years. I know. You did everything that the doctor said and you took all of the drugs and... It's not fair. ...and this is still... I don't want to die just when I'm getting used to my new boobs. You're not going to die.

I am, actually. It, um, metastasized to my bones. It's insurable. Molly's husband, Steve, played by Jay DuPlace, has been afraid to be intimate with her since her initial breast cancer diagnosis. Their marriage counseling sessions leave her unsatisfied, but a session with a newly assigned palliative care counselor

leaves her encouraged to recognize and explore her deeper sexual feelings, wherever they might lead. After a very long and bad day, she returns to her apartment and sees an unfamiliar neighbor guy—that's the way he's credited, as neighbor guy—doing a sloppy job of putting his garbage down the hallway's garbage chute. She reacts forcefully, and we hear her her inner thoughts noting that she likes being dominant. And Neighbor Guy, played by Rob Delaney, seems to like her dominance too. Look!

What, you think you can just make a mess and expect that other people will clean it up? Yeah. Pick it up. Oh my god. You're doing what I say. Now say, I'm disgusting. I'm disgusting. After that scene, you may think you have a good idea of where Dying for Sex is going. I thought I did, but I was really, really wrong.

The reason for Molly's formerly closed off attitudes towards sex have to do with a childhood trauma which is revealed slowly and emotionally. And all of the characters surrounding Molly, even if they might appear easy to pigeonhole at first, will surprise you at some point. That goes for her friends and family, including her long-estranged mother played perfectly by Sissy Spacek. But it also goes for the caregivers, including David Raich as Molly's doctor, Escoe Julie as her care counselor, and Paula Pell as an oddly cheerful hospice nurse. Hulu's Dying for Sex is co-created by Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Merriweather,

both of whom come from the sitcom New Girl. They make this mini-series a TV journey you're not likely to forget, but the actors are most responsible for both the laughs and the tears here. Jenny Slate as the best friend, Rob Delaney as the neighbor, and Sissy Spacek as the guilt-ridden mom, all of them create fully dimensional vulnerable characters and are outstanding. And all of them revolve like planets around Michelle Williams as Molly,

whose acting in Dying for Sex is so human and so touching, it's hard to describe. I've been impressed and surprised by the depth of her acting several times before, including when she played Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn and the Mother in the Fableman's and even Gwen Verdon in FX's Fosse-Verdon series. But in Dying for Sex, Michelle Williams floored me. Her portrayal, like the series, is at times broadly and brilliantly comic, but also is so vivid and so involving.

It may bring you to tears also. David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed Dying for Sex. It's streaming on Hulu. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, some answers to the questions many Democrats and Republicans are still asking. How Trump beat Biden, Harris and the odds in the wildest campaign in history.

That's the subtitle of the new book Uncharted by tomorrow's guest, Chris Whipple. One of his previous books is about White House Chiefs of Staff. So we'll also talk about President Trump's. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews,

follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Riebaudenado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challener, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley.

I'm Tarariq Rose. A couple months ago here at Planet Money, we stumbled across our favorite kind of economic mystery. Jack, what is this? A deal that seemed way too good to be true. What I'm seeing here at least is that it's very high clarity. Join us on our adventure. Show me what you got.

To find out exactly how much a diamond is worth. at least, is that it's very high clarity. Join us on our adventure Talk to me, show me what you got. to find out exactly how much a diamond is worth. Planet Money from NPR, wherever you get your podcasts. Psychologist Dolly Chugg studies the lengths we will go to protect the way we see ourselves. We care about whether we're seen as a good person, whether others see us as a good person, and whether we feel like good people.

Ideas about our self-image. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR.