TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY - SFX MAGAZINE: Bill Pullman Interview
July 14, 2011
When news first surfaced that Torchwood: Miracle Day’s main bad guy would be a child murderer, Oswald Danes, who survives execution because of Miracle Day (the day when people stop dying), more than a few eyebrows were raised. Was it tasteless, or morally dubious to feature such a character in a science fiction action series? A series that’s a spin-off from the family entertainment phenomenon that is Doctor Who. But as anybody who’d seen Children Of Earth knew, Torchwood had moved on a long way, and series creator Russell T Davies wasn’t afraid to tackle to dark side of humanity in surprising and thought-provoking ways.
Nevertheless, it was going to take someone with serious acting chops to pull off a character like Danes. So that’s who the show’s executive producers – Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner – called on: Bill Pullman. Although still most remembered by genre fans as the president in Independence Day, Pullman is no stranger to more twisted roles in films such as Lost Highway and The Guilty.
When SFX calls him up for an exclusive chat about Miracle Day, he immediately jokes that what we’ve interrupted him in the midst of a very un-sci-fi occupation: “I just came out of the fields. I have a ranch with my brother here in Montana. It’s just starting into haying season. I feel very far from sci-fi...”
... Q: Is it a bit of a back-handed compliment being asked to play a child murderer?
Bill Pullman: “Well, you know, I have played a bunch of troubled characters before, so I was kinda prepared for it. I’m not shy of that kind of stuff. Other people can worry more about that sort of thing, but I don’t. It was just a well written part. I don’t think I could do a child murderer just for a child murderer’s sake, you know. And in a kind of way, that’s just the condition he begins with, and then because of circumstances, he has to extend beyond that. Then it’s a question of whether he’s carrying too much baggage to be able to do that.”
Q: Yes, because although he starts out – for want of a better shorthand – as a Hannibal Lecter character, he develops into a Billy Graham, or maybe messianic character, doesn’t he?
Bill Pullman: “That’s exactly it. Either by fluke, or coincidence, or divine destiny, his failure to die becomes the pivot for a whole world that has changed. He becomes a global celebrity, in a way. People begin to listen to him and he has a message they want to hear. He’s an intelligent guy, so he’s recognising opportunities, and sensing all the layers of threat that could come and throw him off his throne. He recognises all these powers that want to co-opt him. He has to make alliances with difficult people that he is not comfortable with. So you get a look at that kind of intricacies of power...”
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