David Tennant at a Rivals season 2 screening in New York Getty Images Even in an era of declining TV output, there is still more than enough room to fly under the radar — which is exactly what the first season of Rivals did in America. A smart, soapy and, at times, very sexy (I’ve blushed!) adaptation of the 1988 Jilly Cooper novel of the same name understandably hit bigger its native United Kingdom. But with a noticeable promotional push from Disney, which airs it on Disney+ and Hulu, the location porn of its Cotswolds backdrop and even more fawning reviews for the second season, its stateside profile is on the rise. Also, it never hurts to have David Tennant in your corner. One of the greatest stage actors of his generation, and arguably the most successful performer to tackle Doctor Who, Tennant stars as Lord Tony Baddingham. He’s a ruthless TV executive with the kind of chip on his shoulder that can only come from being new money in Margaret Thatcher era Great Britain. “A lot of what Jilly writes is embedded in the British class system and what that means and all the weird intricacies and nuances of that,” says Tennant. “There’s the power that comes with money, but the real power comes with bloodline. That’s part of the ceiling created in a society that has a monarch at the top of it. There are rooms you are simply not allowed into.” On Rivals, viewers are invited into many of those rooms — even if Tennant’s alter ego isn’t. Speaking during a recent episode of The Hollywood Reporter podcast I’m Having an Episode (Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple), the actor dug into the unique role sex plays on his series, being happy to return to Doctor Who when called and why, with hindsight, he’s realized that exact replica of Broadchurch he made for Fox back in 2014 probably wasn’t the best idea. I probably wouldn’t even mention this were it not on Disney+, but there is a lot of sex on Rivals.
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There is quite a lot, yeah.
The first thing you see in the first episode is a couple who’ve locked themselves in the bathroom of the Concorde, which does immediately tell you the time period. Did you ever fly on the Concorde?
I never did. It was around, but I was never in the kind of worlds that were boarding such extraordinary devices. We filmed on an actual Concorde though, for that sequence. There’s one in a museum in Bristol. They let us go on board and film in it. I don’t think the shagging in the toilet was filmed on the actual original vintage Concorde. They built the toilet. But the main Concorde bit that was on the actual plane. It’s a tiny, pokey little thing.
The show walks a very fine line with the intimate scenes. There are a lot of them, but they don’t seem gratuitous. Before you came on board, what were the talks like about how sex would figure into this series? As Jilly Cooper does in the original novel, I think the sex is always there because it reveals something about character. So, for instance, that very first scene is about Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassel) — his freedom, his promiscuity, his virility. It’s about the fact that he exists in a high-flying world. So that is portrayed in that kind of heightened reality.
There’s a sex scene much later in series one that I have with my wife Monica, which is discreet and rather covert. And that speaks to what their relationship is about. The other sex scene in that series was with Nafessa Williams’ character. There’s something quite aggressive and animal about that because that’s their relationship. That’s what they are to each other. I think that’s true of all the sex in the show. Some of it’s a bit ugly at times as well. Some of it’s full of joy and liberation. Some of it’s experimental. Some of it is gentle. I think it’s all there because that part of the story we’re telling is about the sexual life of these characters. A lot of them are very motivated by the mechanics of sex, the dynamics of those relationships, just as it was in the original novel. Every scene advances what we understand about the plot and the characters. But it is done with flair and joy and a lot of the time it’s fun too. I think that’s quite unapologetic.
Did you have a relationship with the Jilly Cooper books prior to this?
They were definitely in the cultural ether. I knew who Jilly Cooper was, but she was kind of quite snobbishly dismissed.I think I’d probably received that by osmosis, really. The myth was that they were sold to frustrated housewives, to read on the beach when they went on a package holiday to Malaga. Maybe because she was a woman writing at a certain time, she was easy to dismiss. But the books persisted. They were tenacious despite all that. She writes about human beings, human nature, the foibles of human interactivity, sexual and otherwise. She’s almost more like a Dickens than a Jackie Collins, you might say.
David Tennant as Lord Tony Baddingham in Rivals season two. Courtesy of Disney+ The morality on Rivals exists on its own scale, so I wouldn’t call your character a villain, but you have played a lot of them — serial killers, psychopaths, the devil. Was there a moment in your career where you noticed a trend?
It’s interesting, as someone who is quite conflict-averse, as someone who suffers a lot from guilt and who’s not particularly liberated by a lack of morality in real life. I suppose enjoyable is the word, to imagine what it might be like to walk in those very nicely put together three piece tailor-made suits and brogues. I mean, they’re fun to play, aren’t they? It’s enjoyable to imagine what life might be like if you didn’t give a shit.
I suppose it’s also noticeable because your introduction to the international stage was Doctor Who. Your portrayal of that character was very whimsical and driven by the idea of doing the right thing.
I’ve ended up playing some quite extreme characters who often often occupy the less savory corner of the narrative. But the devil gets all the best tunes, I suppose. Those are interesting to play. But that’s not to say that something like The Doctor isn’t either, because that’s someone who’s got universes in his brain. That’s fantastic to play as well. someone who can speak quicker than we can think. I guess there’s no one reason why anything feels particularly appealing or attractive. When there’s a delicious character, there can be a million reasons why they’re delicious. You can taste it straight away.
How would you describe your relationship to Doctor Who? A lot of actors in your position will distance themselves from a franchise like that, but you never have.
I loved it from when I was a small child. I was pretty obsessed with it as a show and as a character. So when the very unlikely circumstances arose that I was asked to take over on the show, a show which had not existed for many years in between, it felt like a wonderful, impossible opportunity. I loved it. It was everything I hoped it might be. And it definitely changed my life in so many ways, professionally and personally, that I don’t feel the need to distance myself from it. I’m also aware that I probably can’t. If I never worked again, the first line of my obituary probably been written. Doctor Who attracts that kind of attention and enthusiasm.
I want to go back to something you said a moment ago about suffering from guilt. Not to therapise you, but what what do you mean by that? What do you feel guilty about?
Everything, absolutely everything. I’m a Scottish Presbyterian. It’s my engine. Everything is sent to make me feel bad about myself. That’s it, really. I don’t have any more profound an insight than that. (Laughs.) Must be partly upbringing and partly psychology. I will often worry that one hasn’t done the right thing, behaved appropriately, been as kind as one should have been. I think maybe having a sort of very keen sense of that allows me to understand characters like Tony Badingham, who has none of that.
You essentially played your character from Broadchurch in the U.S. remake, Gracepoint, with an American accent. This was while you were still making Broadchurch in the U.K. Was that an interesting exercise for you as an actor?
Fascinating. But it’s interesting you say you don’t think it would happen now. It probably shouldn’t have happened then. The world was already more of a monoculture than it had been up to that point. There was a long tradition there being an American show and then British version of that show and vice versa. We almost expected it. They often didn’t translate, but we had to go, didn’t we?
There were so many.
With Broadchurch, it had been such a big sensation at home and a minor sensation in the U.S. I think it got more column inches than it had got eyeballs, so there was a sense that, “Let’s put it on one of the main networks and there’ll be an audience waiting for it.” Those who’d written the column inches were like, “No, we’ve already seen this.” It was slightly dead on arrival as an idea. I only say that now with hindsight. I think, if we were going to do it, we should have made a very different show. We made the same show, and I was offered the opportunity to recreate it. That’s such an extraordinary thing to be asked to do. I’m not going to say no. I’m not going let someone else do it.
David Tennant in the Doctor Who 60th anniversary special. Disney + On the subject of your obituary, I would argue that you are as associated with your many productions of Shakespeare’s work as you as you are with Doctor Who. What role has given you the most satisfaction? Playing Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company was an absolute kind of pinch me moment, but it was also utterly terrifying. Hamlet‘s probably the thing I look back on with the most satisfaction and pride. But the act of living through it was pretty stressful. As the run went on, every night felt like, “I know I got away with it last night, but I can’t possibly get away with it again.” I was sort of yearning for it to be over. Hamlet’s kind of mind expanding. It’s just glorious.
I would assume that kind of repetition would lead to boredom instead of stress.
If only I could be bored rather than scared! But that makes it sound like I didn’t absolutely yearn for the whole thing. Not long ago, I did Macbeth. There’s nothing else as challenging and as exciting. I feel very lucky to have had to do a few of those plays and there’s definitely a few that I’ve got on my wish list.
What’s at the top of the wish list?
Right now, probably Iago in Othello. The psychology of that character is deeply troubling. But, you know, what a part.
There’s a classic clip of Judy Dench basically being coaxed by Graham Norton into reciting Shakespeare, from memory, on the spot. If put in a similar position, is there Is there a monologue you could pull out of your ass?
I don’t have that kind of recall. Because I think Judy Dench can do the entire text of a Midsummer Night’s Dream, the entire play. I asked her this once, “Is that true?” And she went, “Probably” — which means it’s definitely true.
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