5 minute read
A Q&A with David Tennant
David Tennant as Phileas Fogg
A Q&A with Around the World in 80 Days star David Tennant
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On Sunday, January 2 at 7:00 pm, WTTW premieres a new adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic adventure story Around the World in 80 Days. The series stars David Tennant as the hapless Phileas Fogg, rushing to set a world record. Tennant reflects on the series, its differences from its source material, and amusing experiences on set.
What was it about Ashley Pharoah’s scripts and this version of the story that made you want to get on board?
DAVID TENNANT: The first episode is a real mission statement for what the series is going to be. It’s very exciting. The characters are very much Ashley’s version of those characters; they’re quite different in many ways to Jules Verne’s original version. What Ashley has done is that he’s created a trio who are an addition to the original source material. They work really well and send you into this extraordinary adventure.
How does your character, Phileas Fogg, develop as the adventure progresses?
TENNANT: One of the things that Ashley has introduced into the story is a backstory for Fogg where he chose not to go on an adventure once before because he was scared. In that moment he also wrote off his chance for romance and happiness. These things all come together as something that Fogg will try and conquer. He begins his journey with a slight naiveté. Bit by bit, very slowly over the course of our story, we see him find himself and his inner strength and who he has the potential to be. That also helps him to revisit the loneliness and the sadness from earlier in his life, and to try and put that to rest a little bit and find some self-respect and dignity going forward.
TENNANT: Passepartout becomes Fogg’s valet on his journey. There’s not really a particular exhaustive interview process; it all happens slightly by accident that they are thrust together on this journey. Luckily for Fogg, Passepartout is resourceful and has a dash of courage and anarchy that Fogg
lacks. Passepartout and Fogg very much start out as master and servant in a very old-fashioned 19th century way, but inevitably as they go through all the ups and downs of this extraordinary journey, their relationship becomes something else. They form a bond and become fairly necessary to each other. Certainly Fogg couldn’t manage without Passepartout. Passepartout could probably manage without Fogg.
How does Fogg’s relationship with fellow traveler Abigail Fix evolve through the series?
TENNANT: In the novel, Fix is a police detective who’s chasing Fogg around the world for a crime he didn’t commit. This isn’t a part of our story. That character name has been reappropriated and given to the daughter of one of Fogg’s best friends, Fortescue. Fortescue is the owner of The Daily Telegraph and his daughter, Abigail “Fix” Fortescue, is a very spunky young woman who, despite the fact that it’s the late 19th century, is determined to become a respected journalist. She in fact writes the article that inspires Fogg to embark on his adventure in the first place. Her father changes the byline on the article to a fictional male writer because it’s a man’s world, and that enrages Fix. However, when she discovers that Fogg is going to try to be the first person to complete this journey, she decides she has to be by his side, reporting on it.
Your son Ty Tennant joined the cast for the New York storyline. How excited were you to be working with him for the first time?
TENNANT: We’d never acted together until this, so it was a first for us as a family. In episode eight he had to try to take down Fogg in a New York warehouse, so there were lots of family dynamics being played out that day!
Bit by bit over the course of our story, we see him find his inner strength and who he has the potential to be.
quite safe up there, until the camel decides otherwise and then you’re not. That’s when you realize that this thing you’re on is incredibly powerful and you are a mere gnat to it, sitting on its hump. They were rather wonderful, but every now and again I would be rather humbled and reminded that they were very much in charge. They don’t really understand the shooting schedule and the necessity of completing the day and why should they? They’re not in Equity [the actors union]!
What kind of stunt preparation was needed for this series?
Leonie Benesch as Abigail “Fix” Fortescue and Ibrahim Koma as Passepartout TENNANT: Fogg is so utterly ill-prepared for his journey that whenever there was a suggestion that I might like to practice a day on a camel, I thought I shouldn’t, really! Purely to maintain the authenticity of the character you see!
Do you like traveling, and what’s the most exciting country you’ve ever been to?
TENNANT: I suppose the most exciting times I’ve had traveling are when you’re slightly out of your comfort zone; when you’re experiencing the unknown and when you’re in worlds that feel very different from the worlds that you know. Sometimes that’s not a pleasant experience, but I think it makes you a better person, an accepting and more tolerant person, perhaps. Sometimes, it’s the journeys that aren’t the most pleasant that inform who you are.
Has making this show changed your view on travel?
TENNANT: Phileas Fogg, of course, has never left the UK and the furthest he has been is to Edinburgh for a wedding, so this whole journey is a literal and metaphorical one – the opening up of the possibilities of what life can be. Travel is a great metaphor of that and a great facilitator for that. We sometimes have to travel far from home to know what home is. I suppose if anything that’s what this story is about.
