I Am What I Am, John Barrowman [smart ebook reader .txt] 📗

I also have a terrific PA, Rhys Livesy, who helps with the day-to-day demands of my life. Because my schedule is so tightly managed, I don’t always know where or what I’m doing until I look at Gav’s schedule.15 I’m utterly dependent on it. My motto is definitely ‘day by day’. Family members know this and if they need to ask me something about my schedule or where I will be on a certain date, they go directly to Rhys or they check their own copies of my schedule that Gav forwards to close family. I’m the last person they ask.

When it came to scheduling the shoots for season three of Torchwood, because of some other work I’d agreed to do before the producers had issued their itinerary, when filming began, I didn’t start with everyone else. This meant that I wasn’t there when the tone was set, and this added some alienation to the discomfort I was already feeling about the series.

When I first read the scripts for the five episodes, I truly thought they were of feature-film calibre. I thought they’d thoroughly engage new fans and fully satisfy the hard-core ones, but – I know, here comes another one – given everything I’ve been mentioning, I still felt as if Torchwood was being asked to prove its worth all over again. My paranoia was like a splinter in my brain, persistent and annoying. Now I was wondering if this sibling was being kicked out of its parents’ house. So Scott made me more toasted cheese and another vodka tonic.

It didn’t help that as soon as I stepped on set, I got into a battle of wits and styles with the director of the five-episode arc, Euros Lyn. Euros had directed a couple of Doctor Who episodes previously, including ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ and David Tennant’s final regeneration episode. I respect and like Euros immensely, and we ended up with a strong working relationship, but initially we were like two rams locking horns. Euros’s style was more passive-aggressive in his approach to a scene, and – as you know – I’m not very passive at all. Tell me what you want to change in my performance, help me understand why you want that aspect to change, and I’ll likely change it.

One of the first scenes I was in with Euros directing, we were in the warehouse set that becomes the makeshift Hub during Day Three of ‘Children of Earth’. Cameras rolled, the scene played out, Euros would call ‘cut’ and then he’d come up to me and the conversation would go something like this.

‘Good, John, I liked it, but I’d like to go again. This time, bring it back a bit.’

Deep breath.

There I was, standing in that desolate warehouse, the Hub destroyed, the cast soon to be decimated again, down to five episodes from thirteen, the need to prove ourselves once more – aargh!

‘If I bring it back any further, I’ll be back in my fucking trailer!’

I know Jack well and I thought I was being asked to play him differently, less in your face and more under the radar, less ironic and more laconic. Euros’s direction, as far as I was concerned at that particular moment, was turning me into a mumbling, introspective actor. The whole point of acting is to live the emotion, to say your lines and to be that person. I know it’s not necessary to project as much on television as I do when I’m on a stage – I’m not stupid – but I wondered: when was the decision made that Jack was supposed to sound like Christian Bale playing Batman on Torchwood? Because if Jack did start to sound like Christian Bale playing Batman on Torchwood, then John Barrowman would have to spend four or five days in a dubbing suite because the dialogue would be so bloody understated not even a Weevil could understand it.

Exhale.

The set was deathly quiet. I finished the scene. Then I went to my trailer to calm down. After a few more takes, I got on with my job and Euros got on with his, and, according to Julie Gardner, Russell, and lots of viewers here and across the Atlantic, each of us did amazing work on ‘Children of Earth’.

*

In the final scene of Day Five of ‘Children of Earth’, Jack stands at an emotional precipice. At a terrible cost to himself and those he loves, he has saved the children of Earth. He looks up to the heavens. For forgiveness? For release? For escape? He touches his wrist, activates his upgraded Vortex Manipulator, and in a beam of light … Jack’s gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I CAN DO THAT’

★

‘Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.’

Dr Seuss

Five things I’ve learned from being a talent-show judge

1 Be honest (preferably in a sound bite).

2 The public always chooses the right performer.

3 Don’t contradict yourself (why not?).

4 The audience knows when you’re talking shite (or shit).

5 Don’t date a contestant (until he wins).

When Connie Fisher completed her first audition for the part of Maria in How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, I leaned over to David Ian and Zoë Tyler, my fellow judges in the BBC’s search to find the lead in the West End’s revival production of The Sound of Music, and I whispered, ‘That’s Maria.’

David shushed me immediately. ‘You can’t say that at this point in the competition!’

Yes, I can. I wasn’t suggesting to my fellow judges that Connie was going to win – because that decision would be out of my hands. I knew the public in the end would decide. I also knew, from my own years of theatre experience, that performers grow and change and adapt and rise to heights not always seen in an audition, but at that moment, given what I’d seen in the panel auditions, with very little additional work Connie could have stepped in to