Doctor Who’s Pearl Mackie: ‘When I was little there weren’t many people like me on TV’Posted in Articles, Arts, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2017-04-10 01:31Z by Steven |
Doctor Who’s Pearl Mackie: ‘When I was little there weren’t many people like me on TV’
The Guardian
2017-04-09
 Pearl Mackie: ‘This is by far the biggest thing I have ever done, which is amazing.’ Pearl wears top £26 urbanoutfitters.com. Make-up by Linda Johansson at One Represents using YSL Beauty. Hair by Bianca Simone Scott using Mizani. Fashion assistant Bemi Shaw. Photograph: Andrew Woffinden for the Observer |
Meet Doctor Who’s new companion, Pearl Mackie. She tells Sarah Hughes why it’s so important to have diverse actors on TV, and how her friends are making sure her feet stay on the ground
The moment when Pearl Mackie understood just how big her new role as Doctor Who’s latest companion was came early in filming. “There was a scene in episode three that was so awesome – in the sense that I was awestruck by the scale of the set – that it was really humbling. I stood there looking at it, thinking, ‘Oh. Wow. This is a very big show.’ When you see it from the inside, that’s when you realise how massive it is.”
She’s not wrong — Doctor Who is, as 29-year-old Mackie puts it, “properly, globally huge”. The most successful science fiction series in television history, this tale of a history-haunted time lord and his adventures across the universe with various sidekicks has progressed far beyond its days as children’s tea-time entertainment. In 2013 the 50th anniversary special broke viewing records around the world after being aired in 94 countries simultaneously while the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, began his stint by undertaking a rock star-style world tour with then companion Jenna Coleman, taking in Cardiff, London, Seoul, Sydney, New York, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. At each stop they were greeted by queues of fans, many of them in costume. There were Weeping Angels and Daleks, Cybermen and companions, and a whole host of Doctors, from every stage of this very British institution’s lengthy career…
…She spent much of her own childhood searching for a similar jolt of recognition. “When Alicia Keys came out that was a big thing for me because she was mixed race as well,” she says. “There were a lot of people I liked on screen, like Judi Dench, she’s wicked, but that’s very different to having someone where you think, ‘She looks like me, maybe I could do that.’”…
Read the entire article here.