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Russell Tovey about Plain Clothes and Doctor Who Spin-Off

It didn’t take Russell Tovey much effort to make contact with Tom Blyth, the star of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbird. The actors met each other on Zoom for the first time before they filmed the gay-indied drama of writer-director Carmi Emmi.

“I immediately thought:” This man is the real deal, “says Tovey in this week’s podcast ‘Just for Variety’. “He is a British and I am a Brit and we both do our thing. I was so charmed and excited to work with him. He is a real actor and he has an absolute passion for independent film. With him it’s all about honesty and authenticity when telling the story, and that’s what I am for. The relationship between the two and their connection and their chemistry is of fundamental importance for the functioning of this story.

Those two in “PlainClothes” are Lucas (Blyth), an undercover agent in Syracuse, New York from the nineties, which is assigned to a stab operation in which he goes after gay men while they cruise through the bathroom of a shopping center, and Andrew (Tovey ), the target with whom Lucas falls. Love with.

“It is full of star dust,” says Tovey about Blyth. “He is so dedicated and so great in the role and such a team player. I arrived there and everyone in the crew was in love with Tom. And I thought, “Okay, wait a minute.” So I raised the charm higher and thought, “You will love me too.” [Laughs] We both went out as it were as our most charming self. “

I spoke with Tovey prior to the premiere of ‘Plain Clothes’ on January 26 at the Sundance Film Festival. This question and answer is adapted for length and clarity. You can listen to the full conversation on the website Podcast ‘Only for variety’.

Tell me about the script that comes to you. How did you come about?

Carmen said that when he was writing this script, he had looked at ‘Looking’, but that he had been to ‘Angels in America’ on Broadway and then went back and looked at the National Theater Live, and me My Joe had seen playing. Pitt. And he said that after that moment, when he was writing Andrew, he had my face in mind.

Why is this an important story to tell?

I think it’s that period in history. I think what is really important, beautiful and unique about this film is that you see the responsibility that Andrew feels towards Lucas, where he talks about San Francisco and about protection. He understands that this is an intergenerational connection, a sexual connection that he has a responsibility towards Lucas. And I think that’s a very nice dynamic for them. It is the coming of age story from Lucas. He has come across someone yes, there are complications at Andrew, but he has come across someone who is generous with spirits, with strange spirits, almost as an elder who gives him something, even though it is incredibly complicated and he is a very controlled individual . It felt like a very unique story to tell. I think for myself that I now have to reach 43rd and then the younger generations and have conversations with them about the importance of remembering and the importance of telling stories and hereditary traumas and as a community for which we stand, what we are what we Being able to lose.

Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey in ‘Plain Clothes’.

What do you like about André?

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I love his calmness. In Andrew I wanted to find this real confident trust in the scenarios he built for himself. He is very controlled. He has given himself so many rules and he sticks to it, and he breaks his rules. This is a real challenge for them, and that is why it is such a huge emotional disruption for both. It’s like playing Joe Pitt in ‘Angels in America’. He was a very restless soul that was very laborious, very controlled about what he brought out, so terrified inside. And I think with Andrew I feel that there are clear elements of Joe Pitt in Andrew in the fact that he is very closed. I am attracted to these restless souls, but I want you as an audience or I want people to feel with them and don’t think they are a bad guy or not see them as something negative, but just as a product of society.

Why do you feel attracted to restless souls?

Because I am an actor. Isn’t that what we want? Isn’t that what we want, the nuances and emotional challenges in the characters we play? I have my own fears, my own things I work through. And if you can process your own things through another character, that is a privilege. The only thing we can do as actors is to make a selection from our own life experiences and then convert into what the character will experience. I notice that as I get older, the more challenging the role is, the more satisfied I feel when I go home in the evening, because I feel that I can practice things in myself or understand things in myself by these characters to play. The more I act, the older I get. I want to make myself even more vulnerable on the screen, because I feel that vulnerability is the greatest act of generosity that you can do as an actor. I learn to do that more and more.

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I have to ask you something about the leading role in the spin-off of Doctor Who, the War Between the Land and the Sea. How nice was it?

It has been one of the most joyful jobs I have ever done. Every day was just brilliant. I love the character that I play. I love the cast and crew. I think that as actors we have a responsibility when we walk on the set to be nice, honest and vulnerable. And I think that as I get older and with every project I do, I make sure that when I walk the set, I am friendly and that that is all I can do. I was number one in this show and from day one I thought: “It is not a struggle for me to be nice.” I know the ripples that arise when you are a very good number one, are a very good team player and are friendly on the set. We have all worked with people who are not so generous with their kindness or their good energy, and it ensures a very uncomfortable, unsatisfactory and sometimes disturbing experience. It makes it harder for you to be vulnerable because it frightens you. But this project was just wonderful. Russell t Davies is just the best person because he looks at the newspapers every day and everyone texts, all heads of the apartments, all actors. “That was great. Wow, I think that’s great, the way you did this sentence, “every person. And he says that he never repeats the same text in case people have sat side by side and suddenly see that he only copies and pastes the same text. But that is exciting for a cast and crew. Is that your head man? The main honcho is on top of everything and looks and compliments.

What should the Diehard “Doctor Who” fans know about this show?

Oh God, what should the diehard “Doctor Who” fans know? The story of these beings has appeared in episodes of ‘Doctor Who’. It could have been in the 1960s, but this is a freshening up. You have members of unit there. Jemma Redgrave is so brilliant. She’s the same character [Kate Lethbridge-Stewart] In this, but it is so elevated. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is in prostheses and phenomenal. I don’t know how she does it. I think it has everything for the “Doctor Who” world, but it also feels completely fresh. With Dylan Holmes Williams, the director of ‘Who’s’, it feels like an indignation film. I wanted it to feel grainy, indie and dynamic that way. And they said, “Absolutely.”

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Are you also in the prostheses?

No.

Did you want to be?

No, no, no, no, no, no. I played George de Weerwolf and every episode for years, once every two weeks, I got up at three in the morning, I covered myself with latex and ran through the forest, which sounds like a fetish, but it isn’t. It wasn’t. After a while I thought: “Fuck it now, come on.” So I don’t hurry back to prostheses.

Do you not enjoy them? You don’t enjoy running around in the forest.

No, because it is always in the middle of winter. I am always poodle naked and then I run around and then there is someone who walks his dog and I run screaming.

That sounds like a fetish, Russell.

Not my fetish. I am very vanilla. That is certainly not something on my radar, and I have experienced it and I never want to do it again. So it’s certainly not a fetish.

Is there a genre that you really want to do, but that you haven’t done yet?

That’s a good question. I mean, I enjoyed doing ‘Little Dorrit’ years ago. I like a Dickensian costume drama.

It’s your fetish.

It is my first Dickensian London fetish costume, your cosplay, the Dickensian Cosplay. Yes, that’s my fetish. I would like to do that as a genre. It would be pretty cool to make an indignation film that is a Dickensian costume drama. Do you know what I mean? That would be pretty fascinating. That is not a big budget. That is really as if you are playing these roles, almost like Mike Leigh, the ‘Vera Drake’ territory. Things like that would feel very exciting, but I just want to make more indieF movies. That is where these truly unique, brilliant, powerful and important stories are told, where art is made and the most beautiful stories are investigated.

Do you want to direct?

Uncertain at the moment. I do so many other things. Everyone will say, “Just stay in your lane, Russell.” At some point, let’s say yes. I don’t want to close that.

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