Torchwood

• For his legions of fans, there’s really no apology required, but John clearly has no time for those critics who would like to see him stick to one line of work. So why does he think people want to see him pigeonholed?

   “I think that people just don’t understand it when someone can do more than one thing, and people get scared by things that they don’t understand. I’m in three different areas, because I’m employed by BBC Drama, I’m employed by BBC Entertainment, and I perform on stage as well. Some people have tried to say that I can only do one of those things, but I’ve had a career in musicals and theatre for 16 years prior to doing Doctor Who, so I’ve been able to say, ‘Look: you’re not dealing with someone who’s never done anything before, and you can’t tell me not to do that.’ No one should be able to tell you you have to limit yourself.”

  It’s a motto that could very well apply to Captain Jack himself. During series two of Torchwood, the character has continued to develop, with glimpses of his childhood, his Time Agent past with Captain John, and his involvement with Torchwood throughout the 20th Century adding to his already rich history. Does John enjoy such opportunities to build on the character he first played back in 2005?

  “I love any opportunity to explore Jack’s past,” he says, “whether it’s in the 1890s or the Boeshane Peninsula or wherever. I’ve always said that the way we time travel in Torchwood is through Jack’s memory, and through his experiences in the past – which, in part, is also our future. I’d like to do more episodes like that, and I would love it if we could bring the rest of the team into Jack’s world a little more. It was brilliant when Toshiko met the other Captain Jack in 1940, and I think the show is at its most interesting when we do things like that. I’d love it if we did something similar with Jack and Gwen, in fact, because I feel that maybe their stories are a bit too separate now.”

  What did he think of Jack Montgomery, who played the young Jack in the 51st Century scenes in Adam? “Jack’s a good performer and a handsome young man. I’ve seen him on stage in The Sound of Music and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and I think he’s great. We could definitely explore more about Jack with him.”

  What about Lachlan Nieboer as Jack’s brother, Gray? “Oh, I definitely want some incest scenes written for him!” he laughs. “He is a very attractive young man, and after Russell [T Davies, executive producer] saw the rushes of us together in the Vaults, he texted me saying, ‘I’m writing the incest scene now!’ Joking aside though, I think Lachlan
  is great, and I’d love to do some more stuff with him. Can you believe that Torchwood was his first job straight out of drama school? It was lovely to watch him do his thing. He said he was surprised how easily we could be chatting one minute, then go straight into the scene, whereas he still had to go through this whole process of psyching himself up. But we took our time to get it right, and I made sure I was there to support him and make him feel comfortable, as I do with all the guest actors.”

  With characters like Gray revealing more about Jack’s life all the time, it seems the Torchwood universe might one day rival Doctor Who, with the layers of mythology that surround its lead character.

  “Oh, I think that’s true,” says John. “I hope so, anyway. There’s tons of stuff there to develop now, all around Jack. It’s a huge science fiction world we’re creating, and all the time Jack is getting more like the Doctor – with all this history, and his gang around him. I was thinking about it the other day, actually, and it was a really cool revelation! I had
  a great big grin on my face for the rest of the day.”

  Of course, having been buried alive for 2,000 years in the series two finale, Exit Wounds, Jack is now even older than his Time Lord role model...

  “Oh wow!” says John. “I’d never thought of that! That is totally awesome! The Doctor is only hundreds of years old, and I’m at least 2,000 now!  How cool is that? I’ll rub that in when I next see David [Tennant]! Actually, no I won’t, because I really am older than he is!”

  Jack’s interment at the hands of his brother and the enslaved Captain John formed part of the dramatic climax of series two, and was also by far the darkest chapter in Jack’s life of deaths so far. As someone who’s died so many times for Torchwood, what did John make of this especially bleak turn of events?

  “It is nasty, but Jack accepts it as punishment for abandoning Gray,” he says. “I remember when we were shooting, Ashley [Way, director of Exit Wounds] said I should be in the grave, looking up and panicking, but I didn’t see it like that. I thought the panic would be internal, and that’s why he looks at John for help. But the look to Gray has to be a thing of acceptance and calm: if this is my punishment, then I’m going to take it. As Jack, I had to take a deep breath and almost put myself into a state of trance – making myself die, if that makes any sense at all. I was letting it all go and bringing it all down. It was the opposite of what I do when I come back to life, with the panic and the shock, because I was going into a calm state, knowing that this was what Gray needed to do.

  “What’s interesting is that in series one, Jack still treats it as a curse. He’s been living with it for 100 years, and it’s still a curse to him, because he wants to die. But when he finds the Doctor again, he realises that it is a gift, and he uses it to help people. There’s a song in the musical Wicked that goes: ‘This gift or this curse I have inside, Maybe at last, I’ll know why, When we are hand in hand, the Wizard and I.’ When I was on tour, I sang that, and changed it to ‘The Doctor and I’. Thanks to the Doctor, Jack understands his purpose in life now.”

  But, of course, the most shocking aspect of Exit Wounds was not Jack’s suffering at the hands of his brother, but the pair of much more permanent deaths that punctuated its final moments: those of Tosh and Owen (played by Naoko Mori and Burn Gorman). So how did John feel about that storyline and those final scenes?

  “I can’t watch them,” he says, bluntly. “I’ve seen it, but I couldn’t watch it again when it went out on BBC2. My mum watched it, and she was in tears. Right from the first episode with Suzie, we knew that the team members could die, but there wasn’t the same emotional commitment to her. The audience didn’t have time to grasp hold of Suzie like they did with Toshiko and Owen, but now they’ve been on a journey with all of us, so
  it’s as if they’ve lost a part of their family.

  “It was the same for all of us on the team, when we knew what was happening. I was gutted when I found out. Naoko kept dropping hints, and saying things like, ‘Oh, I’m not in this next shot. They must be going to kill me!’ And then, when we were walking back to our trailers one day, she and Burn said to us, ‘Look, we want to tell you something…’ Eve [Myles] and I just stood there and burst into tears. Then Naoko started crying and I hugged Burn, and we all started hugging each other! They were okay with it, and they said so, but it was still hard for us. They wanted to be the ones to tell us, and it came as a real shock.”

  The sense of losing a family member must have been especially strong for John, who has known Naoko since their early theatre days.

  “Oh yeah, I’ve known Naoko since I was in my early 20s. She would say she was in her teens, but she’s lying! Torchwood is the third time I’ve worked with her, so it was really sad to see her go. But I still speak to her and Burn all the time, and I’m hoping to see Burn and his family in a couple of weeks, in fact. They will always be a part of Torchwood, and they helped create this team and make it the huge success that it is. They will always be important to the fans as well, so Owen and Toshiko will never be forgotten.”

Read the full feature in issue #6 of Torchwood magazine

Back to top