Doctor Who’s Pearl Mackie: ‘When I was little there weren’t many people like me on TV’
The moment when Pearl Mackie understood just how big her new role as Doctor Who’s latest companion was came early in filming. “There was a scene in episode three that was so awesome – in the sense that I was awestruck by the scale of the set – that it was really humbling. I stood there looking at it, thinking, ‘Oh. Wow. This is a very big show.’ When you see it from the inside, that’s when you realise how massive it is.”
It’s quite weird to me when people say, ‘I think you should tweet about you and not about political issues’
She’s not wrong — Doctor Who is, as 29-year-old Mackie puts it, “properly, globally huge”. The most successful science fiction series in television history, this tale of a history-haunted time lord and his adventures across the universe with various sidekicks has progressed far beyond its days as children’s tea-time entertainment. In 2013 the 50th anniversary special broke viewing records around the world after being aired in 94 countries simultaneously while the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, began his stint by undertaking a rock star-style world tour with then companion Jenna Coleman, taking in Cardiff, London, Seoul, Sydney, New York, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. At each stop they were greeted by queues of fans, many of them in costume. There were Weeping Angels and Daleks, Cybermen and companions, and a whole host of Doctors, from every stage of this very British institution’s lengthy career.
Yet even institutions need a shot in the arm once in a while, and it’s this that the upbeat, enthusiastic Mackie, with her mobile features, frequent hand gesticulations and firm opinions, promises to bring to the series. Her part as new companion Bill Potts is “quite chatty, a bit mouthy, sometimes says the wrong thing… She questions things that haven’t been questioned in a really long time, which is fun.” Bill will also be openly gay. “It shouldn’t be a big deal in the 21st century. It’s about time, isn’t it?”
As is Mackie herself. Playing Bill is her first major role after a career as a jobbing actor consisting of a lot of repertory theatre, a year-long stint in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in London’s West End (“No, I wasn’t there when the roof fell in, that’s what everyone asks…”) and an afternoon’s work on daytime soap Doctors. “This is by far the biggest thing I have ever done, which is amazing,” she admits, laughing. “And also a bit mental.”
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Perfect companion: with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. Photograph: Ray Burmiston/BBCIf it fazes her, then she’s hiding it well. At the photo shoot for this piece she gamely tries on outfit after outfit of streetwear, looking like a small but ferocious superhero, the type of no-nonsense heroine who’s as at home with a snappy retort as a swift roundhouse kick, and the perfect companion for Capaldi’s madcap incarnation of the Doctor. Afterwards in the studio next door she proves entertaining, relaxed company, happy to talk about everything from her love of old musicals (“These days they can seem quite alien, but I grew up with them – Singin’ in the Rain is one of my favourite films”) to seeing Angela Davis talk at the Southbank Centre (“She was so much more amazing than I ever imagined she would be”) and why another Davis, Viola, is her role model. (“I heard her speak after a screening of Fences and it was so empowering,” she says.)
Rather than hiding from the maelstrom to come, Mackie appears keen to embrace it, talking cheerfully about the fun she has had filming, how amazing Capaldi is (“You watch him doing stuff and you think, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, that looks good’ and then you see it on camera and you’re like ‘woaahhh’”), how much she enjoyed a recent Doctor Who convention and, most of all, how great the fans are.
“There was a guy who dressed up as me on Facebook within two hours of my part being announced. I thought: ‘This. Is. Brilliant.’ The whole fandom is amazing. There’s a pair of little kids who literally made my life. I was sitting at home on a Saturday feeling sleepy and I saw them online dressed as Bill. They’re so, so cute. I want to meet them.”
It wasn’t just the high levels of adorability that touched Mackie. “When I was little there weren’t that many people who looked like me on TV, so it’s great to have two little kids thinking: ‘OK, she looks like me so I’m going to dress up as her, and I don’t need a different kind of face make-up, I don’t need to straighten my hair.’”
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Pearl Mackie: Jumper £420, Off White, and jeans £300, Y-Project, both brownsfashion.com. Photograph: Andrew Woffinden for the ObserverShe spent much of her own childhood searching for a similar jolt of recognition. “When Alicia Keys came out that was a big thing for me because she was mixed race as well,” she says. “There were a lot of people I liked on screen, like Judi Dench, she’s wicked, but that’s very different to having someone where you think, ‘She looks like me, maybe I could do that.’”
An only child, Mackie grew up in Brixton, south London, with her mother, an artist and health professional, now retired. It was a loving, supportive childhood, and one with its own claim to television history: her grandfather, Philip Mackie, wrote the screenplay for The Naked Civil Servant, “although he died the year before I was born,” she says, “so I never got to talk acting with him, but apparently he said to my mum and her sisters: ‘Don’t be an actress…’”
Undeterred by this piece of family wisdom, Mackie bombarded her mother with acting requests. “I wanted to act from the age of five – my mum was like, ‘OK, just go to school.’ Then when I was 14 I wanted to go to the Brit School and Mum said, ‘OK, maybe stay at this school, do drama and do your GCSEs.’ Her advice was to take the exams and have a back-up: ‘If you still want to do it after uni, great.’ She’s very sensible.” Despite that, Mackie never seriously considered another career. She studied drama at Bristol University before landing a place on the Bristol Old Vic’s prestigious two-year foundation course and admits she was lucky her mother was so supportive. “I moved back home after I graduated from Bristol Old Vic and I’m really lucky I could do that as it allowed me to work in repertory theatre for no money – it would have been a very different story otherwise.”
Is she concerned about being branded a companion for life? “There is that worry, but the other companions have gone on to do incredible things and, if anything, it’s just a wonderful way of getting yourself out there. There are elements of [she puts on a very daffy voice]: ‘Doctor, what’s this?’ But what’s great about the show is that the heart of it, the relationship between the Doctor and his companion, is very real.”
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Pearl Mackie: Top £265, Alexander Wang ( fenwick.co.uk) Jumpsuit £645 joseph-fashion.com Trainers £79.95 adidas.co.uk Photograph: Andrew Woffinden for the ObserverShe’s aware though that any series of this magnitude comes with a downside. “I know not everyone is going to love Bill, and why should they?” she says. “But I do, and hopefully there won’t be too much unpleasant stuff. If there is, I just won’t listen to it.”
She is similarly sanguine about her own social media presence. She maintains a vigorous Twitter account which doesn’t shy away from tweets of a political bent, referencing Black Lives Matter and talking about both Trump and Brexit.
“The thing is, it’s all the same stuff I used to tweet – I’ve just got more people following me,” she says. “It’s quite weird to me when people say: ‘I think you should only tweet about you and not political issues.’ Fair enough, but I’m not only going to tweet about Doctor Who because essentially that’s just my job. I’m not a brand. I’ve had an entire life before that and I’ve got my own mind. It’s also…” She breaks off before adding seriously: “I just think you can’t not have an opinion about the current state of the world and if I’ve got a slight platform to raise awareness about things, then that’s a great thing to use it for.”
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Stage presence: in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Photograph: Brinkhoff MoegenburgBill is a world away from recent companions – “a very normal girl from a very normal existence” – with none of the complicated back story that dominated Karen Gillen and Jenna Coleman’s runs on the show. Instead, this new companion sounds closer to those from the show’s original run: wide-eyed, practical, up for an adventure and free of torment. “The great thing about Bill is that she wants to know how stuff works and is also excited about what’s happening, and I think that opens up the show for people who may not have watched before or for a while,” says Mackie. “You’re not being dropped into the middle of this complicated storyline, you can just go on the journey with Bill.”
She hopes her tight group of friends from her south London schooldays will be among those who take that journey. “The first episode actually airs on my best mate’s birthday… luckily she was like: ‘Great, we can watch it and then go out.’ Which was cool because I didn’t want to suggest on her birthday that [she drops her voice in a parody of a serious actor]: ‘This is my show and we must all sit down and watch reverentially in silence.’”
In fact, she expects the opposite will be true, and that’s fine. “I kind of hope they all take the piss a little bit. The funniest thing was when I first got the part. We’re all on this WhatsApp group and my cousin wrote: ‘Oh my God, it’s so exciting that you’re going to be in Inspector Morse.’ I was like, ‘What? Really?’ Everyone took the piss for days.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/apr/09/pearl-mackie-doctor-who-interview-companion-not-many-like-me-on-tv
It’s quite weird to me when people say, ‘I think you should tweet about you and not about political issues’
She’s not wrong — Doctor Who is, as 29-year-old Mackie puts it, “properly, globally huge”. The most successful science fiction series in television history, this tale of a history-haunted time lord and his adventures across the universe with various sidekicks has progressed far beyond its days as children’s tea-time entertainment. In 2013 the 50th anniversary special broke viewing records around the world after being aired in 94 countries simultaneously while the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, began his stint by undertaking a rock star-style world tour with then companion Jenna Coleman, taking in Cardiff, London, Seoul, Sydney, New York, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. At each stop they were greeted by queues of fans, many of them in costume. There were Weeping Angels and Daleks, Cybermen and companions, and a whole host of Doctors, from every stage of this very British institution’s lengthy career.
Yet even institutions need a shot in the arm once in a while, and it’s this that the upbeat, enthusiastic Mackie, with her mobile features, frequent hand gesticulations and firm opinions, promises to bring to the series. Her part as new companion Bill Potts is “quite chatty, a bit mouthy, sometimes says the wrong thing… She questions things that haven’t been questioned in a really long time, which is fun.” Bill will also be openly gay. “It shouldn’t be a big deal in the 21st century. It’s about time, isn’t it?”
As is Mackie herself. Playing Bill is her first major role after a career as a jobbing actor consisting of a lot of repertory theatre, a year-long stint in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in London’s West End (“No, I wasn’t there when the roof fell in, that’s what everyone asks…”) and an afternoon’s work on daytime soap Doctors. “This is by far the biggest thing I have ever done, which is amazing,” she admits, laughing. “And also a bit mental.”
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Perfect companion: with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. Photograph: Ray Burmiston/BBCIf it fazes her, then she’s hiding it well. At the photo shoot for this piece she gamely tries on outfit after outfit of streetwear, looking like a small but ferocious superhero, the type of no-nonsense heroine who’s as at home with a snappy retort as a swift roundhouse kick, and the perfect companion for Capaldi’s madcap incarnation of the Doctor. Afterwards in the studio next door she proves entertaining, relaxed company, happy to talk about everything from her love of old musicals (“These days they can seem quite alien, but I grew up with them – Singin’ in the Rain is one of my favourite films”) to seeing Angela Davis talk at the Southbank Centre (“She was so much more amazing than I ever imagined she would be”) and why another Davis, Viola, is her role model. (“I heard her speak after a screening of Fences and it was so empowering,” she says.)
Rather than hiding from the maelstrom to come, Mackie appears keen to embrace it, talking cheerfully about the fun she has had filming, how amazing Capaldi is (“You watch him doing stuff and you think, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, that looks good’ and then you see it on camera and you’re like ‘woaahhh’”), how much she enjoyed a recent Doctor Who convention and, most of all, how great the fans are.
“There was a guy who dressed up as me on Facebook within two hours of my part being announced. I thought: ‘This. Is. Brilliant.’ The whole fandom is amazing. There’s a pair of little kids who literally made my life. I was sitting at home on a Saturday feeling sleepy and I saw them online dressed as Bill. They’re so, so cute. I want to meet them.”
It wasn’t just the high levels of adorability that touched Mackie. “When I was little there weren’t that many people who looked like me on TV, so it’s great to have two little kids thinking: ‘OK, she looks like me so I’m going to dress up as her, and I don’t need a different kind of face make-up, I don’t need to straighten my hair.’”
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Pearl Mackie: Jumper £420, Off White, and jeans £300, Y-Project, both brownsfashion.com. Photograph: Andrew Woffinden for the ObserverShe spent much of her own childhood searching for a similar jolt of recognition. “When Alicia Keys came out that was a big thing for me because she was mixed race as well,” she says. “There were a lot of people I liked on screen, like Judi Dench, she’s wicked, but that’s very different to having someone where you think, ‘She looks like me, maybe I could do that.’”
An only child, Mackie grew up in Brixton, south London, with her mother, an artist and health professional, now retired. It was a loving, supportive childhood, and one with its own claim to television history: her grandfather, Philip Mackie, wrote the screenplay for The Naked Civil Servant, “although he died the year before I was born,” she says, “so I never got to talk acting with him, but apparently he said to my mum and her sisters: ‘Don’t be an actress…’”
Undeterred by this piece of family wisdom, Mackie bombarded her mother with acting requests. “I wanted to act from the age of five – my mum was like, ‘OK, just go to school.’ Then when I was 14 I wanted to go to the Brit School and Mum said, ‘OK, maybe stay at this school, do drama and do your GCSEs.’ Her advice was to take the exams and have a back-up: ‘If you still want to do it after uni, great.’ She’s very sensible.” Despite that, Mackie never seriously considered another career. She studied drama at Bristol University before landing a place on the Bristol Old Vic’s prestigious two-year foundation course and admits she was lucky her mother was so supportive. “I moved back home after I graduated from Bristol Old Vic and I’m really lucky I could do that as it allowed me to work in repertory theatre for no money – it would have been a very different story otherwise.”
Is she concerned about being branded a companion for life? “There is that worry, but the other companions have gone on to do incredible things and, if anything, it’s just a wonderful way of getting yourself out there. There are elements of [she puts on a very daffy voice]: ‘Doctor, what’s this?’ But what’s great about the show is that the heart of it, the relationship between the Doctor and his companion, is very real.”
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Pearl Mackie: Top £265, Alexander Wang ( fenwick.co.uk) Jumpsuit £645 joseph-fashion.com Trainers £79.95 adidas.co.uk Photograph: Andrew Woffinden for the ObserverShe’s aware though that any series of this magnitude comes with a downside. “I know not everyone is going to love Bill, and why should they?” she says. “But I do, and hopefully there won’t be too much unpleasant stuff. If there is, I just won’t listen to it.”
She is similarly sanguine about her own social media presence. She maintains a vigorous Twitter account which doesn’t shy away from tweets of a political bent, referencing Black Lives Matter and talking about both Trump and Brexit.
“The thing is, it’s all the same stuff I used to tweet – I’ve just got more people following me,” she says. “It’s quite weird to me when people say: ‘I think you should only tweet about you and not political issues.’ Fair enough, but I’m not only going to tweet about Doctor Who because essentially that’s just my job. I’m not a brand. I’ve had an entire life before that and I’ve got my own mind. It’s also…” She breaks off before adding seriously: “I just think you can’t not have an opinion about the current state of the world and if I’ve got a slight platform to raise awareness about things, then that’s a great thing to use it for.”
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Stage presence: in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Photograph: Brinkhoff MoegenburgBill is a world away from recent companions – “a very normal girl from a very normal existence” – with none of the complicated back story that dominated Karen Gillen and Jenna Coleman’s runs on the show. Instead, this new companion sounds closer to those from the show’s original run: wide-eyed, practical, up for an adventure and free of torment. “The great thing about Bill is that she wants to know how stuff works and is also excited about what’s happening, and I think that opens up the show for people who may not have watched before or for a while,” says Mackie. “You’re not being dropped into the middle of this complicated storyline, you can just go on the journey with Bill.”
She hopes her tight group of friends from her south London schooldays will be among those who take that journey. “The first episode actually airs on my best mate’s birthday… luckily she was like: ‘Great, we can watch it and then go out.’ Which was cool because I didn’t want to suggest on her birthday that [she drops her voice in a parody of a serious actor]: ‘This is my show and we must all sit down and watch reverentially in silence.’”
In fact, she expects the opposite will be true, and that’s fine. “I kind of hope they all take the piss a little bit. The funniest thing was when I first got the part. We’re all on this WhatsApp group and my cousin wrote: ‘Oh my God, it’s so exciting that you’re going to be in Inspector Morse.’ I was like, ‘What? Really?’ Everyone took the piss for days.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/apr/09/pearl-mackie-doctor-who-interview-companion-not-many-like-me-on-tv
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