Doctor Who - SFX Magazine: Matthew Graham Interview ("The Rebel Flesh")

Source: SFX Magazine [follow link for complete interview]



DOCTOR WHO - SFX MAGAZINE: Matthew Graham Interview ("The Rebel Flesh")

Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes writer Matthew Graham makes a return to Doctor Who this [past] weekend with the first part of the new two-parter, “The Rebel Flesh”. In this exclusive SFX.co.uk interview he discusses the story’s origins....



Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan from "The Rebel Flesh"

... SFX: How did you find writing for Matt Smith?

Matthew Graham: "Writing for Matt is great. Easy actually. Relatively easy. As it was writing for David. Because the characters that they’ve created have such a clear idiom. For me it felt like a very easy fit: the sort of hyperactive nutty professor locked too long away in the laboratory and just allowed out at the last minute. That was the pitch that Steven gave the writers for writing for Matt, and that served me very well. So I nailed, well I felt that I nailed, the character very quickly, and I loved writing for Matt.

You really do try to write for the character, not just a generic Doctor. Obviously, it was slightly easier for me writing for season six, because I’d already seen a whole season of Matt Smith. It would have been harder, obviously, for the writers of season five. But also, they sent me a couple of Steven’s scripts, I think it must have been one and two, just to show me how Steven was writing the Doctor this season.

But no, you can’t just write any old dialogue and hope Matt will make it sound like him. You try very hard to put in Mattisms, if you see what I mean. But you also try not to overdo the Mattisms. It’s a balance. Sometimes you get it right; sometimes you think, “Maybe I’ve overdone the Mattisms here.” But with a dark story like “The Rebel Flesh” and “The Almost People” – I mean, “The Rebel Flesh” is kind of cranking it up, and “The Almost People” drops us over the other side – it’s pretty intense, so it’s really important to try to find moments of proper humour and silliness for Matt. You consciously try to do that..."

Doctor Who's "The Almost People" airs in the US on BBC America, Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 9/8C!