Torchwood Week: John Barrowman

So for readers coming fresh to Children of Earth, can you set the scene for us?

I don’t want to give too much away, but in episode 1 what you get is Torchwood confronted with a situation of children stopping in their tracks all over the world, making freaky noises. Torchwood is trying to work out what’s going on. Normally, Torchwood would be working together with the government, although the government thinks that Torchwood is a pain in the ass.

You’ve got this new kind of structure going on where the government aren’t really helping with Torchwood. So it becomes about us and them. And then you’ve got the 456, who are an alien race named after the frequency they used to contact Earth in the 1960s. And the past is coming back to haunt.

When you started work on this series, did you get a sense that it was a different show? It’s quite a different set up to the previous seasons.

Yes. In series one, we were like a newborn, learning to crawl. Series 2, we were learning to walk. And now, in Series 3, we’re running. We’ve found our feet and what we’re about. We still have the alien intervention, in a way. We’re more of a thriller, and a lot darker, which is what Russell wanted Torchwood to be in the first place — but we tried different things and now we’ve finally landed, in a sense.

But you’ve also got the family aspects that Captain Jack hasn’t had before.

Yeah. Which is nice. And it’s how and where that goes. Jack has a daughter and a grandson, and that’s really all I can say about that. It adds a whole new, it adds more depth to Jack and it makes his decisions feel more weighty.

How early on in the process did you find out you were getting a daughter who looked your age, if not older?

When I read the script. The one thing I don’t interfere with is asking what we would like or how this would be done. I like to be surprised like the rest of us. And that’s happened since I’ve been in Doctor Who, finding out that Jack’s the Face of Boe, and things with Torchwood… That’s what makes it exciting for me to go to work as an actor. When I read it, I go, “Right, how am I going to play this?”

So I knew about it when that script landed in front of me.

How do you go about playing those scenes with Jack and his daughter? Because it’s an odd scenario. Do you visualise her as being much younger than you?

No. I’m not one of those actors who mulls over things like that, I’ll be totally honest with you. I get up and I do it. For me, it’s easy to take myself out of who I am and go into this fantasy role and believe, because I’m a huge science fiction fan. Watching science fiction, I take myself out of reality and put myself into their reality. So it’s very easy for me to do that. When I’m in that coat and in that outfit, I’m Jack. I don’t think of myself os John. When I look at that guy on screen, I don’t see John. I see Jack.

And we’ve met people from Jack’s past before, such as the fairy episode (Series 1’s Small World) where we met a woman he was in a relationship with who was now in her eighties. But it’s all about relationships, and for me they are easy to play. I’ve said this, even going back to musical theatre, you have to make yourself, or allow yourself, to fall in love with the person in order to have a relationship with them. And I find that quite easy to do.

Bearing in mind that Jack is this larger than life sci-fi character who can never die, how does giving him a family change him?

The obvious things. You know that his wife has died, he’s watched her die. That’s one thing you know about Jack from other episodes, that he watches people he loves go and that’s really hard for him. His outlook has completely changed: in season 1, he wanted to die, as he had no reason for living — and Gwen showed him that. In season 2, he was using his ability to help save the world.

But no-one wants to outlive his children.

As well as the bond between them, we also see a bit of Jack’s ruthless side.

Absolutely. That’s Jack. I’ve said this from day one, and it’s the wonderful thing that Russell has done, Jack is so determined with his objective and his focus. Even I talk about this often when we’re together as Jack and Gwen, and we’re looking at stuff. We’ve just done the Torchwood radio plays. We were reading it and something didn’t work and we said, “Jack wouldn’t say that, Gwen would say that and Jack would just barrel ahead.” So we switched the lines.

But yeah, he is focussed, he is ruthless. His objective is to save the planet, and if that means shooting you because you have an alien inside you, he’ll shoot you.

That’s what Gwen is there for. Gwen is trying to make him see the other side, you know, for instance if it is a human being taken over by an alien. I mean, that was in Series 2’s Sleeper. Jack just wanted to kill them, but Gwen was like, you’ve got to see the human side of this.

And it turns out that they were just going to destroy people and kill people, so we had to kill them.

How does the team dynamic feel now that you’ve lost Naoko Mori and Burn Gorman?

Eve, Gareth and I will always miss them. That’s one thing we wanted to make sure in the show, that we have a little moment. Because they were there with us since day one, and they were part of of the beginning of Torchwood, and they’ll always be part of Torchwood. Although they’re not there physically, they are there in spirit. And they do get mentioned at times throughout. Just as at the end of the last series of Doctor Who, where it was Tosh who had created the time bubble to save Gwen and Ianto. So there are little bits like that all the time.

It’s kind of like a new start for Torchwood.

It is a new start. It’s a new look at the team. We’re tighter, just the three of us. That’s not to say that some others don’t get involved.

Do you like the fact that the Torchwood team is more vulnerable this series?

Um. We don’t know that yet, because you don’t know what’s yet to come. At the end of episode 1, yes, things happen. But put it this way, do you think that Jack has not stashed stuff? He might have, he might not…

That’s one of the interesting things to watch: where they go from that point. And I really don’t want to say more, because it’s exciting for the audience. You’ll enjoy watching it. That’s why I haven’t watched the rest of the episodes yet. Obviously I filmed them, so I know what happens, but I want to wait until they air to watch them.

I love sitting and watching. And like I said, these are characters that are heroes, and I love watching the show! I enjoy it. I totally detach myself. I’m not one of those actors who goes, “I can’t watch myself.” That’s bullshit. Don’t agree with it. Why are you doing it if you can’t watch yourself? And it’s not like any psychological thing. I know it’s me, but I see him as Captain Jack. I can detach from it.

Normally, what we’ve done in the past — and I have pictures of this in my book — I have everybody around and we watch on the big screen. Then when each of comes on screen, we take a picture of each other in front of the screen. So that’s one thing.

I absolutely love what I do, I get a real thrill out of it. It’s being the little boy, living his little fantasy dream. But this year, I will be in Wales watching it on television.

So you will be having a party all five nights?

We might! My family will be there this time because they are coming over from the States. So we’re going to sit down and make it what it is: a family event television. Although we don’t have any kids in the family any more — they’re all old enough to watch it.

So not to labour the point, but does that mean you stay away from seeing rushes and things like that?

I don’t see rushes. I don’t think there’s a need. You know, Russell’s the producer and writer. We hire editors and directors. They’re doing their job. As an actor you should trust in those people, and know that they are doing their job brilliantly. I know that they wouldn’t hire anybody crap. So why do I need to see rushes?

That’s not a flippant answer, that’s good sense.

I like to sit and watch it as someone to be entertained by it. I think it’s awesome. It moves like lightning. There’s a lot of information to give the viewer, especially those who are going to join us for the first time on BBC1.

There are rumours that you’ve been filming some scenes for David Tennant’s final episodes of Doctor Who.

Why would you ask that? [smiles]

There have been photos.

I have a confession: I have my own Captain Jack outfit and I wear it around Cardiff. You think I’m lying? I think they caught me coming out of Tesco and running to the car…

Coming back to Torchwood. Was the shooting schedule different as a result of the five-episode storyline?

It wasn’t as long, it was tighter. A lot of us had busy schedules — Eve, Gareth and I are all doing other things so we had to work around that. And we had other cast members, so they were able to film scenes with other characters while we were finishing up what we were doing. So yeah, it was a bit different.

Did you film episode by episode?

No, it was all completely out of sequence. One day we might film something from episode 5, then go back to something from episode 3. And that was unique for us as actors, because normally we film each episode and then move to the next. So we were learning as we went. Euros Lyn, our director, was great. Also, our continuity woman helped. We would say, “Right, where are we? Where have we come from, where are we going?” On a daily basis, you job as an actor is to know the lines you have in the scenes coming up, but you sometimes don’t have the knowledge of what’s just happened.

So how would you like the series to progress from here?

Again, I don’t think of those things. I’ll leave that up to the writers. If we do come back for a fourth series, I’d like to see more episodes, though.

So with the reduced filming schedule this year, has that opened up your diary for other work?

Yes and no. If we did a series 4, we’d have to start pencilling it in right away because of other things I’ve got to do. Last year, BBC America offered me two series for American television, and I turned them down because of my commitments here. And I’ve always said that I would come back here. So yes it does open everything up, but that’s not why we have a shorter series this time. It’s not because of me!

At the launch of series 2, you seemed a bit battered by the rigours of the production schedule. Did that have any bearing on the reduced length?

Yeah, I was, but that wasn’t the reason. We needed to make an impact on BBC1, we have to have an event to bring that BBC1 audience in, although we’re bringing the audience we already have along. That’s why I think it was done, but that’s a question you’ll have to direct to other people and not to myself.

But we’re so happy with this. It’s going to be a brilliant piece of television, and it works. But if there’s a future for Torchwood, I’d just like more! Who wouldn’t?