The one who wrote Coraline, and co-wrote the book of Good Omens and made the TV show, also the Sandman comics writer and co-creator who made the Sandman TV show. Quite nice really.
I don’t know if I ever posted this shot from the desert in February 2018 of Michael and David (he’s getting mic'ed up, not mugged). It was the kind of panoramic shot that decides that Michael is a big floating giant head.
A little BBC Radio 4 news: You can hear the audio adaptation of my story The Sleeper and the Spindle in the UK on the radio on the 24th and the 26th of December,
And after broadcast they will be available anywhere in the world using the websites or the BBC Sounds App.
These will still be up for another couple of weeks and then they will go away for a very long time. They’re really good and fun and you should listen to them…
Will we be able to tell the difference between the shots with the 5 fennic foxes and their stunt double david Tennant, because I want to transitions to be as smooth as possible
Sure. All the acting is done by the foxes. If the character of Crowley is blowing up, burning, or being dropped from a great height then it’s David Tennant. Except for the scene where he explodes and that’s a friend of the producer’s named Raoul. Someone could probably make a flow chart to explain it.
Mr Gaiman, is it true what David's father-in-law says?
If your father-in-law is one of Britain’s finest actors, a former heart-throb who played one of the most beloved incarnations of Doctor Who, then it’s true. David’s not that special.
The raffle for the ACCORD Hospice called
The ULTIMATE David Tennant & Friends Raffle
is now live! :) It is from the 1st April 2022 at 08:30 AM, until the 29th April 2022 at 03:00 PM. The raffle will be drawn on the 29th April 2022 at 03:00 PM. £5.00 per raffle ticket.
I love love love Good Omens, and watching it made me want to see more of David Tennant. I then watched Doctor Who and Staged and am now working my way through everything he’s ever been in ever and he’s now my favourite actor. I think he’s a phenomenal actor, and I love all of his characters, but it’s also because he just seems like such a kind, friendly and goofy person. Everyone I’ve ever seen talk about him, in interviews and such, have only had good things to say. So I’m curious if you have a favourite thing about David Tennant? (Other than his flammability and willingness to be set on fire)
My first week on the Good Omens set, four years ago, I was in line to get food from the catering truck. Back in the pre-covid days you would see everyone from the show in the food line, from the carpenters and the drivers to the production assistants and the costume people. You normally don’t see the actors, because they go back to their trailers and have their food (from the catering truck) brought to them there (this is not a stuck-up thing to do - mostly they are back in their trailers desperately going over their lines, or getting themselves into the headspace they’ll act with). And if you do see fancy actors at the catering truck, oftentimes they’ll be whisked to the front of the line.
But there, standing in the lunch line between a make-up lady and an electrician, was David Tennant. And everyone around felt more comfortable because he was saying up front that he was one of the people making the show, and that there wasn’t any difference between what he was doing and what the electrician or the make-up lady were doing. We were in this together, all contributing to Good Omens.
We barely knew each other at that point, but I was certain then that I would like David, and that he was what my yiddish-speaking ancestors would have called a mensch. And the more I’ve got to know him, the more I’ve respected him as a person and as an actor. He’s lovely.
(Also, I can write weird noises like “Ngk” or “Phwooeeeer” in the scripts and know that something really interesting is going to come out of David’s mouth.)
Just want to first of all thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Never been a fan of something where the creator makes so much time for us. My question is around casting Michael & David. I know you cast them seperately, but was there something you saw in them where you knew they would work well together? Or did that evolve through those first table reads? I speak for most in saying you created a masterpiece in bringing those two together - the dynamic and chemistry is so perfect.
No. That was a surprise.
Michael had said he wanted to be in it from the very start. Around 2014ish. We both assumed he’d be Crowley.
Except as I wrote it, I kept thinking of the Michael I know: an incredibly sweet, sensitive, funny man determined to do good and to do the right thing, and I kept thinking of him as my Aziraphale.
I didn’t really have a Crowley in mind until I was writing Episode 3, and Crowley came down the Aisle of the Church like someone walking barefoot on hot sand, and I thought, “David Tennant could do this.” And by the end of the page I thought, “Crowley’s going to be David Tennant.”
I sent the scripts to David (and more importantly, managed eventually to persuade Amazon to let David play Crowley).
And then came the read through. It wasn’t anything special to start off with, it was as if David and Michael were finding their rhythm, learning to dance together. And then, about twenty minutes in, they found their Crowley and Aziraphale beat, and whatever the magic is began to happen. And it’s happened ever since.
I will happily take all the credit for it, as if I was the person who first decided chocolate and peanut butter would work well together, but really it’s all them.
You waited. And now you see Michael Sheen and David Tennant, being perfectly effable. (On our Soho set. The bookshop is on the left. Could that be a pub on the right?)
