I Am What I Am (5 page)

When I came home later, I stood on the back porch of our house in Mount Vernon, caked in mud from head to toe, with grass stains tattooed on my knees and turf burns on my bum.

When my mum opened the door, I glared at her.

‘Did you have a good game?’

‘Don’t you ever ask me to do that again. I don’t like being dirty.’

Before the close of
Torchwood
series one, I asked Julie Gardner and the other producers to make sure that the crew who stayed with us for series two was there because of their commitment to
Torchwood
. I didn’t want anyone on set who viewed
Torchwood
as ‘sloppy seconds’.

The following year, when we began filming the second series, the message was received and
Torchwood
had its own group of regulars in the crew; plus new trailers from a Welsh company that were roomier and more immaculate inside than the hand-me-downs we’d been using for the first series. We also had a new catering company for our meals on set. In general, we were well looked after, and I felt we had weaned ourselves nicely from the mother ship.

Series two saw
Torchwood
move to BBC2, and at that point as an ensemble of actors and as a drama, I believed we had found our feet. We were no longer the infant sibling. We were all grown up and walking well on our own. Then the first inkling that things were changing hit us like a falling spotlight.

Naoko, Eve, Burn and I were filming a sequence in the Hub (Gareth wasn’t on set at that particular time). The Hub was a richly detailed and brilliantly imagined set, but filming there was always a bit of a pain in the arse because of how elaborately constructed it was.

The main parts of the Hub were built on three distinct levels. The lower level, where characters entered through the round steel door, or came up from the tunnels (which were constructed on a separate set, directly behind the Hub); the second platform level, where the computers and screens, the various
Torchwood
gizmos and gadgets,
and the worn comfy couch were situated; and then, behind this main platform, were the steep steps down to the autopsy room. Jack’s office, of course, was at the far side of the main level. When the entire team was on set for a scene, plus the crew, the lights, the sound, and the camera equipment, there was barely any room to think, never mind move.

The four of us finished our scene and we were walking together out of the Hub. We stepped through the thick, black safety curtains that separate the
Torchwood
set from that of
Doctor Who
and passed in front of the TARDIS, but when we got to the warehouse door, Burn cut out in front and stopped us.

‘We wanted you to hear it first from us,’ he said. ‘Naoko and I are dying at the end of the series. Our characters are dying and they’re not coming back.’

Eve and I were stunned and really upset. We had not seen this coming at all. We all hugged each other and by the time we had separated, we were all crying. It helped a little that Binny and Coco
¹²
added that they were okay with their characters’ deaths. Since the whole Owen-of-the-living-dead arc had happened with Burn, he didn’t think his character could go any further, while Naoko agreed that she too was ready to move on and try some other avenues.

When Burn, Naoko, Eve, Gareth and I had all finished our work for the day, we gathered in my trailer to talk about this turn of events. We cracked open a bottle of champagne and we drank and laughed and cried and cracked open another bottle of champagne. The impromptu gathering wasn’t so much a party as it was a wake for Owen and Tosh.

Not long after these developments, word came down from the Producers on the Mount that
Torchwood
was moving to BBC1 for series three. Hurrah! How cool was that? Eve, Gareth and I were ecstatic. Who wouldn’t be? We each felt as if all our hard work was finally being recognized and rewarded. Then came the caveat, the ‘but’ – the ‘we loved your audition, but you’re just not right for the
part’ moment. The producers informed us that the third series would be running on BBC1, but it would only be five episodes instead of thirteen.

Before I go any further, let me make it really clear that this cut from thirteen episodes to five was a decision made at the production level. The fact that it was one more thing changing at
Torchwood
, and that this worried me as I’ve already suggested, doesn’t diminish the truth that the decrease in the number of episodes was necessary for sound creative and programming reasons. The reduction had nothing to do with my schedule, or Russell’s, or Eve’s, or Gareth’s – or anyone else’s, for that matter.

When a television show moves to BBC1, it’s important to make a dramatic impact: after all, this is the flagship of the BBC and
Torchwood
needed to perform there with a big bang. In order to achieve this, the producers, including Russell, decided to create a television event over five consecutive nights that would be so exciting and so suspenseful that it would be a not-to-be-missed viewing event around the country. The BBC wanted the kind of mini-series dramatic event that would give people something to talk about at the water cooler in their offices the next morning.

When I asked Russell about the episode cut, he revealed that there was also a powerful artistic motivation behind the move. Russell admitted to me that from the moment Captain Jack had first emerged on the page, he had had his secrets. Russell had been keeping a few pivotal details from Jack’s back story under wraps ever since the character’s inception, including the stunning family revelations in ‘Children of Earth’, which I think make Jack’s character more layered and more complicated, his psyche darker, and his anguish for and about humanity more transparent. Russell felt that these disclosures needed to be framed in an epic narrative like ‘Children of Earth’ – one that, even in its thrilling aspects and its brutal, heart-wrenching moments, was really a story about what one person is willing to sacrifice for their own or their family’s survival.

I got all of that, but – still – I have to admit I had mixed feelings about the decision. That, coupled with the loss of Burn and Naoko
from the
Torchwood
team, sent me home to Scott on many a night during filming to ask him if he thought I was being paranoid and silly by reading something into this series of events. His response was always supportive and comforting, and then he’d make me some toasted cheese and a vodka tonic and rub my feet and I’d forget about what was bothering me for a while.

The problem with ‘[b]eing slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant – it tends to get worse’.
¹³
The second area that contributed to my fretfulness had to do with some scheduling issues on
Torchwood
.

Scheduling has always been a source of a little conflict between the
Torchwood
producers and me. When I’m filming
Torchwood
, it’s my main gig. No ifs, ands or buts with that statement. However, unlike a lot of other actors, I want to keep my work diversified, my jobs balanced, and my plate full. It’s how I roll – a little music, some theatre, a children’s show, a concert tour, judging. I’m very good at multi-tasking in my professional life
¹⁴
and I like to plan my schedule in such a way that I get maximum entertainment value out of my time.

Life is short and it’s not a rehearsal. I want to make the most of my talents and the opportunities they are now affording me. That’s one of the reasons why my manager, business partner and friend, Gavin Barker, and I formed Barrowman Barker Productions (BBP) in 2008. This production company will give me the chance to broaden my entertainment interests even more.

Even while I was filming
Torchwood
series one, I could never get a hard-and-fast weekly schedule from the producers on a regular basis. Sometimes the schedule would get delivered the night before a shoot. I remember during series two, an AD dashed to my Cardiff flat close to midnight with a schedule for the following day that stated I was not needed until later in the afternoon. What annoyed me about this short notice was that I had cancelled a guest appearance on another show in London in order to return to Cardiff that night because I’d thought I had an early pick-up the next morning.

I want to work because I love to work. This means I need a precise schedule to follow every week. Gav maps it out down to the second, and I check it every night to see what I have to do and where I have to be the next day. I also have a terrific PA, Rhys Livesy, who helps with the day-to-day demands of my life. Because my schedule is so tightly managed, I don’t always know where or what I’m doing until I look at Gav’s schedule.
¹⁵
I’m utterly dependent on it. My motto is definitely ‘day by day’. Family members know this and if they need to ask me something about my schedule or where I will be on a certain date, they go directly to Rhys or they check their own copies of my schedule that Gav forwards to close family. I’m the last person they ask.

When it came to scheduling the shoots for season three of
Torchwood
, because of some other work I’d agreed to do before the producers had issued their itinerary, when filming began, I didn’t start with everyone else. This meant that I wasn’t there when the tone was set, and this added some alienation to the discomfort I was already feeling about the series.

When I first read the scripts for the five episodes, I truly thought they were of feature-film calibre. I thought they’d thoroughly engage new fans and fully satisfy the hard-core ones, but – I know, here comes another one – given everything I’ve been mentioning, I still felt as if
Torchwood
was being asked to prove its worth all over again. My paranoia was like a splinter in my brain, persistent and annoying. Now I was wondering if this sibling was being kicked out of its parents’ house. So Scott made me more toasted cheese and another vodka tonic.

It didn’t help that as soon as I stepped on set, I got into a battle of wits and styles with the director of the five-episode arc, Euros Lyn. Euros had directed a couple of
Doctor Who
episodes previously, including ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ and David Tennant’s final regeneration episode. I respect and like Euros immensely, and we ended up with a strong working relationship, but initially we were like two rams locking horns. Euros’s style was more passive-aggressive
in his approach to a scene, and – as you know – I’m not very passive at all. Tell me what you want to change in my performance, help me understand why you want that aspect to change, and I’ll likely change it.

One of the first scenes I was in with Euros directing, we were in the warehouse set that becomes the makeshift Hub during Day Three of ‘Children of Earth’. Cameras rolled, the scene played out, Euros would call ‘cut’ and then he’d come up to me and the conversation would go something like this.

‘Good, John, I liked it, but I’d like to go again. This time, bring it back a bit.’

Deep breath.

There I was, standing in that desolate warehouse, the Hub destroyed, the cast soon to be decimated again, down to five episodes from thirteen, the need to prove ourselves once more – aargh!

‘If I bring it back any further, I’ll be back in my fucking trailer!’

I know Jack well and I thought I was being asked to play him differently, less in your face and more under the radar, less ironic and more laconic. Euros’s direction, as far as I was concerned at that particular moment, was turning me into a mumbling, introspective actor. The whole point of acting is to live the emotion, to say your lines and to be that person. I know it’s not necessary to project as much on television as I do when I’m on a stage – I’m not stupid – but I wondered: when was the decision made that Jack was supposed to sound like Christian Bale playing Batman on
Torchwood
? Because if Jack did start to sound like Christian Bale playing Batman on
Torchwood
, then John Barrowman would have to spend four or five days in a dubbing suite because the dialogue would be so bloody understated not even a Weevil could understand it.

Exhale.

The set was deathly quiet. I finished the scene. Then I went to my trailer to calm down. After a few more takes, I got on with my job and Euros got on with his, and, according to Julie Gardner, Russell, and lots of viewers here and across the Atlantic, each of us did amazing work on ‘Children of Earth’.

In the final scene of Day Five of ‘Children of Earth’, Jack stands at an emotional precipice. At a terrible cost to himself and those he loves, he has saved the children of Earth. He looks up to the heavens. For forgiveness? For release? For escape? He touches his wrist, activates his upgraded Vortex Manipulator, and in a beam of light … Jack’s gone.

★

‘Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.’

Dr Seuss

1 Be honest (preferably in a sound bite).

2 The public always chooses the right performer.

3 Don’t contradict yourself (why not?).

4 The audience knows when you’re talking shite (or shit).

5 Don’t date a contestant (until he wins).

W
hen Connie Fisher completed her first audition for the part of Maria in
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
, I leaned over to David Ian and Zoë Tyler, my fellow judges in the BBC’s search to find the lead in the West End’s revival production of
The Sound of Music
, and I whispered, ‘That’s Maria.’

David shushed me immediately. ‘You can’t say that at this point in the competition!’

Yes, I can. I wasn’t suggesting to my fellow judges that Connie was going to win – because that decision would be out of my hands. I knew the public in the end would decide. I also knew, from my own years of theatre experience, that performers grow and change and adapt and rise to heights not always seen in an audition, but at that moment, given what I’d seen in the panel auditions, with very little additional work Connie could have stepped in to play Maria right then and there.