{"id":11996,"date":"2019-10-04T13:00:59","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2019-10-04T13:15:02","modified_gmt":"2019-10-04T17:15:02","slug":"mark-gatiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/mark-gatiss\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Gatiss"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Mark Gatiss is quite the renaissance man. You\u2019ve seen him in Game of Thrones<\/em>, Wolf Hall<\/em> and Sherlock<\/em>\u2014the acclaimed BBC drama that he co-created with Steven Moffat\u2014among numerous other shows. He is behind several installments of BBC Four\u2019s Christmas ghost stories, including the upcoming M. R. James adaptation, Martin\u2019s Close<\/em>. He has starred in a slew of radio and stage plays and written Doctor Who<\/em> novels and a biography of film director James Whale. This August, Gatiss wrapped filming on Dracula<\/em>, his latest collaboration with Moffat, which is destined for BBC One in the U.K. and Netflix everywhere else. Gatiss speaks to TV Drama<\/em> about putting a new spin on Bram Stoker\u2019s iconic character, his long-running collaboration with Moffat and what he misses most about playing Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock\u2019s older, powerful brother, who may or may not actually be running the country.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> How did the idea come about for you and Steven Moffat to do a new Dracula<\/em>?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> It has a strange genesis because it\u2019s been in the works, not definitively, for quite a long time. We had just started shooting series three of Sherlock\u00a0<\/em>and we came back from an awards ceremony, and I had a picture on my phone of Benedict Cumberbatch\u2019s silhouette. I showed it to Ben Stephenson, who was then the head of drama [commissioning] at the BBC, and said, \u201cIt looks like Dracula, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d And he said, \u201cDo you want to do it?\u201d That was literally the beginning of it. That\u2019s two drama commissioners ago. It only really came to fruition when we\u2019d finished the last series of Sherlock<\/em>. We thought, maybe we should do Dracula\u00a0<\/em>if they still want it. And they did. That\u2019s how it started.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> What was your approach to retelling this well-known story?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> It\u2019s a Sherlock\u00a0<\/em>approach, except that it\u2019s period, in that we wanted to look at the story, which has been told a lot, and see what it is that people love about it and still respond to. Go back to the essence of it and find out what worked and what we could do [that was] different.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> How did you go about finding your lead?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> It was similar to Sherlock\u00a0<\/em>in that we didn\u2019t want anyone with any baggage. Benedict kind of came out of left field for everybody. We wanted to try to do a similar thing. As with Sherlock<\/em>, there was a long list of potentials but we knew the sort of thing we were after, and then Kate Rhodes James, the casting director, [asked if we had] seen the film The Square<\/em>. And we watched it and Dracula walked on! [Laughs<\/em>] We wanted someone with dark good looks, a kind of leading-man presence, and not British. Claes [Bang] has a fantastically light touch. And yet, of course, he looks like three James Bonds all at the same time! He can be very scary and very brooding, but he also has a lovely twinkle to him. If someone has been around for 500 years, they\u2019d have a detached humor about the world!<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Why do you think vampires remain such an obsession for so many people?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> First, it\u2019s a very old tradition. It\u2019s in virtually every culture, which is interesting. Secondly, it\u2019s the character of Dracula himself, the apotheosis of the seductive outsider. Literally someone tapping at your window that you shouldn\u2019t let in but you sort of want to. There\u2019s a strange and fantastically unhealthy thing going on there about the seductive nature of death and everything that is forbidden.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something really interesting about what vampires mean to different generations. We\u2019ve been through the Twilight\u00a0<\/em>phase\u2014the gentle vegetarian vampires! I think we\u2019re trying to bring back a much more full-blooded\u2014no pun intended\u2014vampire. You can look back, and people have written books about what [the symbolism] means. Do they represent cataclysm? Do they represent fear of the East, of the outsider? Do they represent corruption from within? You can make it be about whatever you want it to be about! [Laughs<\/em>] That might be one of the reasons it\u2019s survived.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> You used the three-episode format with great success on Sherlock<\/em>. What\u2019s appealing about this model?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> A Dracula\u00a0<\/em>film is usually roughly 90 minutes long. So we have three. As with Sherlock<\/em>, it\u2019s both faithful and faithless at the same time. We\u2019ve done a lot of stuff from the novel, and we\u2019ve done a lot of new stuff and ignored some stuff. It\u2019s a wonderful palette to play with because you have a lot of time to tell your story. We treat them as films. We promise, we\u2019ll do the three best Dracula\u00a0<\/em>films you didn\u2019t know you wanted! [Laughs<\/em>]\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> How did your creative collaboration with Steven Moffat start?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> We\u2019ve been friends for 20 odd years. When we were both working on the first series of the rebooted Doctor Who\u00a0<\/em>in 2005, we were always traveling together to Cardiff. We were on a train and we started talking about Sherlock Holmes and how much we loved the Basil Rathbone films. The West was in the middle of a new war in Afghanistan and I said, \u201cIt\u2019s funny that in the first story, A Study in Scarlet<\/em>, Doctor Watson is invalided out of service in Afghanistan.\u201d We looked at each other and I said, \u201cSomeone should do that again.\u201d And that\u2019s how that began. We\u2019ve been doing that on and off for ten years\u2014it\u2019s been ten years since we made the pilot. And then Dracula\u00a0<\/em>is the next thing along. We have a shared worldview of story\u00adtelling and we both love things that are fun. I like to make things I\u2019d like to watch. That\u2019s a good yardstick to go by\u2014something I\u2019d watch on a bank holiday Monday.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Did knowing that Netflix would position it as a \u201cglobal original\u201d factor into how you approached telling the story?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> You must never do that because otherwise, you\u2019re immediately self-editing. You\u2019re trying to second-guess things. Nobody knows why something works or doesn\u2019t. We had no idea Sherlock\u00a0<\/em>would be the international sensation that it is. You couldn\u2019t predict it. If you could, you\u2019d bottle it and do it again! If you were to write things around, I wonder if this will be popular in the Indian subcontinent, you\u2019d go crazy. We make what we want to make and see what happens.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> You\u2019re also working on a new ghost story for BBC Four. How did those come about?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> This is my fourth one. I\u2019m a huge fan of Christmas ghost stories. It used to be an annual tradition on the BBC and it\u2019s come back patchily over the years. Again, it\u2019s what I want to watch. I did an M. R. James story in 2013, and last year I did an original story called The Dead Room\u00a0<\/em>with Simon Callow. This year I have another M. R. James, with Peter Capaldi, called Martin\u2019s Close<\/em>. It\u2019s a quick shoot\u2014it only took four days. I did it right at the end of Dracula<\/em>\u2014just because I didn\u2019t have enough to do! [Laughs<\/em>]\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> When you\u2019re acting in other people\u2019s shows, do you ever find yourself wanting to rewrite the scripts?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> Yes, but I have a great deal of respect for the writer, and I know that look in someone\u2019s eyes when you bring up something\u2014because I have that look myself! It is very frustrating to have quibbles over a line you\u2019ve been working on for 12 months, and which you know [the actor] read the night before! When the boot is on the other foot, I\u2019m extremely careful and generous, as it were, about that. Because I know what it feels like to be on the other side.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Are there other classic characters you\u2019d like to reboot?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> I know it looks like a reboot agenda, but it isn\u2019t! I always want to do something new. Sometimes it\u2019s hard. If you\u2019re trying to get a brand-new detective off the ground or a brand-new vampire, it\u2019s difficult. It\u2019s not impossible, it doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t keep trying, but it is harder. One of the reasons I did a new ghost story last year was that I don\u2019t want it to be just M. R. James [adaptations]. I wanted to keep refreshing it. If I do more, I\u2019d like to bring in some other stories to adapt or write some more new ones. We\u2019re only nostalgic for these things because they were once new. There are so many sequels and franchises dominating the film business, we need to make sure we tell some new stories. Otherwise, it\u2019s just an exercise in recycling.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Do you miss playing Mycroft?
\nGATISS:<\/strong> I do, but what I miss at the moment is the idea that Mycroft might be running the country. I\u2019d be really, really reassured if there was someone like Mycroft running the country. There desperately isn\u2019t! Otherwise, we wouldn\u2019t be in this bloody mess. However, I am prepared to step in at any moment and address the nation to calm people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Gatiss speaks about putting a new spin on Bram Stoker\u2019s iconic character, his long-running collaboration with Moffat and what he misses most about playing Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock\u2019s older, powerful brother, who may or may not actually be running the country. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":11997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[2765,2840],"class_list":["post-11996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","tag-dracula","tag-mark-gatiss","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nMark Gatiss - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/mark-gatiss\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mark Gatiss - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mark Gatiss speaks about putting a new spin on Bram Stoker\u2019s iconic character, his long-running collaboration with Moffat and what he misses most about playing Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock\u2019s older, powerful brother, who may or may not actually be running the country. \u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/mark-gatiss\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-10-04T17:00:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-10-04T17:15:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2017\/07\/Mark-Gatiss-Eivind-Hansen-thumb-1019.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"319\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/mark-gatiss\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/mark-gatiss\/\",\"name\":\"Mark Gatiss - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-10-04T17:00:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-10-04T17:15:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/mark-gatiss\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/mark-gatiss\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/mark-gatiss\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Mark Gatiss\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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