Tuesday, 10 December 2013

Colin Baker interview

There's a nice long interview with Colin Baker from his appearance at "Chicago TARDIS". He talks about the anniversary stories, reprising his role, and the prospect of a female Doctor. It was a joint interview with Lauren Rapciak and the Hoo on Who podcast, so full text version at the link, and audio, too!

"I'm quite pleased to have been involved in the two best projects over the 50th Anniversary celebrations.  I think The Light at the End is brilliant.  Easier to do, of course... You can do superb visual effects on audio.  (Laughs) ...and it was a great story, I mean, Nick Briggs is a genius. Peter [Davison] came up with [The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot] because we became steadily aware that we weren't going to be involved in the TV special...  He contacted me and Sylvester [McCoy], Paul [McGann], and Tom [Baker], to be a part of it.  Sylvester and I agreed immediately.  So did Paul.  Tom said "yes," then said "no," then said "yes," then said "no..."

"We found out, obviously, when the 50th Anniversary program was aired, why he was being so elusive.  But, it's still called The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot because we cheated and used a bit of Shada... Standard ploy.  When Tom Baker is not being cooperative, dig out Shada again."

Hoo: "They should bring you back as The Master."

CB: "No, I want to be The Doctor. I'd be extremely good as The Master, but I want to come back as The Doctor...The costume that I wanted is exactly what Christopher Eccleston got- a long black coat... you can lurk in the background and achieve things you can't achieve when you go around looking like an explosion in a rainbow factory!  It's just absurd, but it was a reflection of the time.  It was 1983, it was glam rock and all that was going on...

Hoo: "I also want to point out that you were probably the first Doctor that embraced social media. You got onto Twitter before any of the other ones, didn't you?"

CB: "I'm not sure what order it was, but yea, I love Twitter!  Twitter is a brilliant way of letting people know what you're doing, and you don't have to engage in lengthy conversations with anybody.  Every now and then, I go through my "@s"... There's an awful lot of people who talk to me, and I can't speak to them all, but I just pick a few out at random and say "Happy Birthday" or whatever and people get very happy.  It's nice to make people happy so easily- just in 140 characters."

GGC: "If you could design the perfect villain for The Sixth Doctor, who or what would it be?"

CB: "It would be The Sixth Doctor- a clone of the Sixth Doctor who turned bad. I would love to do that.  Of course, when there are identical people being villains, the villain is always better at portraying the good one than the good one is at portraying the villain. It would be an interesting task."

"I did do a Big Finish audio where my evolved Doctor, if you like, meets up with my post-regeneration Doctor, and I had to play both Doctors. It was quite interesting. There was a huge difference between my 1984 Doctor and my 2013 Doctor.  I got to do scenes with myself.  It's called The Wrong Doctors.  It's worth listening to."

GGC: "Let's explore those fan reactions just a bit more. I have a few questions directly from fans!  Dannimon asks, 'Did you ever get to keep any of the pieces from the show? A Dalek or Cyberman piece, etc.?'"

CB: "Yea, I got Davros's finger.  When I blew his hand up, after the explosion, I put this broken polystyrene finger up my nose, and I said my next line with a finger up my nose. As I was removing it, the Director politely asked me to not do it like that... I've still got the finger. Nobody else wants it, now that it's been up my nose.  I've got some small props, yea- guns and pieces. And my costume."

GGC: "I think I know the answer to this one, but Mary Jo would like to ask, were you really under the shrouds in the 50th anniversary special?"

CB: "We were."

GGC: "Really?"

CB: "Well, we were!"

GGC: "OK, OK. I want to believe it so badly-"

CB: "Then you should believe it."

GGC: "Finally, I always close my interviews with the same request.  Geek Girl Chicago reaches many young women-"

CB: "My favorite group of society."

GGC: "I would LOVE to hear if you have any special message specially for female fans."

CB: "My message for female fans is, part of me doesn't actually believe that there are male and female fans. It's just fans.  Part of me doesn't believe there's male and female.  There's just people.  That's what I've brought my four daughters up to believe- that you are people first."

"Yes, nature has given you different qualities and physiques, but otherwise, you are just as entitled, just as valuable, and you should be valued as such.  I get very cross about unequal pay between men and women.  That's me as a man. I would be appalled to think that I was getting more than a woman who was doing the same job as me.  Mind you, I work at a job where everybody's getting more than me...and I love women.  All my friends are women. I got more female friends than I have male friends... and... and... part of me would love to be a woman.  And there should be a woman Doctor.  Why can't we have one?  I ask that question at conventions, and a large number of women don't agree with me!"

Hoo: "Really?!"

CB: "No they don't, but if you regenerate twelve times- every time a man??  Doesn't make sense!"

GGC: "At some point, I think you'd get curious!"

CB: "It should be six of one, six of the other. I'd love to see that."

GGC: "I would, too."

CB:  "Maybe it will be you, then."

1 comment:

Imoscar.com said...

"As I was removing it, the Director politely asked me to not do it like that... I've still got the finger"


hehe