Peter Capaldi says Dr Who directors might have underestimated Jenna Coleman, but really the “joke’s on them”. Speaking at the Women of the Year Awards this week where he presented his former co-star with the Best Actress accolade, Capaldi told the audience how Coleman would always be given more notes than he to work with on set – something, he says, that she never needed.
“The winner of this award and I worked together for two years which meant that we laughed a lot mainly at each other’s misfortunes,” said Capaldi before presenting Coleman with the prize. “There was nothing I would enjoy more than when a new director would come onto the set and, being wary of me, I think they would decide to give the winner of this award a lot of notes and I would chortle happily from the wings watching her being persecuted. Happy, happy days.”
“But the joke was on me and them because the fact was that she needed no notes because she has a wonderful talent which is that rarest of combinations – great thoughtfulness, intelligence and deep, deep emption, which means that when she acts she’s smart, spontaneous and combustible,” he said. “And when she plays a scene it can go absolutely anywhere.”
After the awards presentation, Capaldi injected a little humour to the proceedings, telling Harper’s Bazaar UK that he was unlikely to dish out such effusive praise to his co-star outside of the ceremony, adding that Coleman had only asked him to present the award to get him out the house.
“It’s nice to say face-to-face how fantastic you are because it’s embarrassing to do it in real life,” he said laughing. “We would never do it in real life. We’re from the north you see. Also, I don’t get out much and she knows that, so she thought, ‘let’s give him a night out.’”
Coleman has spent the year playing mothers in Victoria and, more harrowingly, in The Cry, which looks at child abduction. She highlighted her friends, “the heroes in my life”, who shared “beautiful, searing” accounts of motherhood, one of whom described it as being part of “a silent tribe of warriors”.