How do you go about directing an episode of Doctor Who?

We chat to Lawrence Gough, director of series 10’s The Pilot and Smile to find out.

The first two episodes of the currentDoctor Whorun,The PilotandSmile, were both directed by the same man.

Can you take us through it?

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Yeah!

I trained as an actor for four years, but I had no interest in becoming an actor.

I did that, then made, I dont know, maybe four or five hundred shorts.

All of them quite terrible!

Then some of them got better, and got selected for festivals.

Then we started winning awards.

Then the UK Film Council contacted me, and gave me money.

Is that by design too?

You say you trained as an actor, which sounds like a calculated move… A bit of both, really.

In this country, making a country is at least three or four years of hard slog.

A labour of love.

Its got bigger and bigger and is a lot of fun.

Balancing the two, really.

IsDoctor Whoin your blood?

Is this something you were set on.

And how do you get a job directingDoctor Whoepisodes?

I dont really know how it happened!

Back up, back up: what was Tom Bakers speech like!?

I wasnt there, but apparently he quite liked to hold court.

[Pause] Er, you know hes in the room!

I actually switched off, though!

I couldnt accept that!

That hes changed, so I have to stop watching it, so I did!

Then I got into film and TV, writing and directing, and I worked onAtlantis.

I first worked with Ashley Rowe, the DP on that, and we became very good friends.

Ashley recommended me to Pete Bennett [producer,Doctor Who].

Eventually, he asked if I wanted to meet.

And then they made the offer.

To get the first two episodes of a series, too.

It was an interesting pressure.

I try and seek out projects that give me pressure.

It was a challenge, and I wanted that.

I was pretty heavy on giving feedback on script, as much as I could do.

I guess it was about four months, five months.

I was finishing up another TV series.

Embracing the world ofDoctor Who.

That breaks the ice with the actors as well too, presumably?

Just seeing how they work as actors.

Seeing the two of them, how I could cajole and push them.

And you went straight from one episode to the second?

We shot episode one [The Pilot] first, and thenSmile.

Doesnt always work that way, but inDoctor Who, I guess it does!

We had the luxury of being able to say thats how we wanted to do it.

Going back to that four month gap between getting the job and starting.

You say you gave script feedback, how much influence do you get?

The old cliche is that television is more the writers than directors medium?

But Stevens script on that episode did not need a lot of work.

In the early stages, when Stevens scripts come in, they just dont need much.

Can you go nerdy on that moment for us, then?

Can you take us through that?

I was hoping that Steven would embrace all the things that we love aboutDoctor Who.

Who this man is, Pearls work, finding the TARDIS.

I thought thats a real bonus to come on board and do that kind of direction.

We were able to travel the camera the maximum diameter of the TARDIS using an extremely wide lens.

I do have to ask: what are the dimensions of the TARDIS?!

Youre probably looking at maybe between 20 and 30 metres.

and the way the lights come on.

I gather with television that reshoots are not an option.

That what you get is what you work with.

I literally storyboarded the entire thing, every frame.

A couple of thousand boards or something.

Everything is pretty much done, and of course theres what you find on the day.

But its the way to do it, really.

Especially when youre dealing with so many layers.

Youve got the action, the schedule, the visual effects, then what can you do in camera?

The first half hour ofSmilereally gets that across.

Theres measure to it.

How much influence do you get over that?

Was that something you find in the edit, was it there from the start?

It was there from the off.

I come back in my work to studying as an actor.

Allowing the actor to breathe in the frame and not steering the audience for every beat.

Not just doing blanket coverage and making it in the edit.

Whats the essence of the scene?

Whats this scene about?

Was there anything notable that you did have to leave out, when it came to the edit?

When we spin around them, what was originally revealed was that the Doctor was on stage playing guitar.

Its a great sequence, it was lovely to shoot.

Its all part of that time and space montage.

It was lovely, and it was a really great sequence.

Peter was great, and with all the extras, the place was packed out.

He did this whole sequence on the guitar, and we filmed the whole thing.

Everyone was really into it, as if you were in a club watching a band.

Something had to go, so that went.

Its a shame people dont buy DVDs any more, as thatd be a deleted scene on the discs!

Just looking toSmile, then.

And was your aim to keep it very human-focused in the way you shot it?

The remit of a city 5000 years in the future, that would be very boring to build.

Eventually we found the science park in Valencia and it was just perfect.

It was typically embracing the real space, placing the actors within it, and creating the world.

But once youre done and dusted, does that stay the same even on something like this?

I did watch it on Saturday night at 7.20.

More importantly, I think theres a real emotional punch in it.

Which ultimately, when watching anything, is the thing you remember if its decent.

And it felt good.

I felt quite proud of it!

Im not surprised, and congratulations to you!

Lawrence Gough, thank you very much!

Lawrence Goughs next project, a feature film, is set to be officially announced shortly.