Meet the Warrior of the Deep
Gugu Mbatha-Raw felt liberated by her transformation
BBC Studios/Bad Wolf/Samuel Dore
- Huw Fullerton
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The Sea Devils have been around in Doctor Who since the 1970s. Were you aware of them?
I have to confess, I wasn’t around in the 70s! And I didn’t do a deep-dive into the Sea Devils’ mythology. For me, it was exciting to start where we are, in the world that Russell T Davies has created with the show. For fans of Doctor Who, there are so many nuances and layers that they will pick up on. But you don’t have to know all of that background to really invest in the story, which I think is one of its strengths.
You’ve been in the Doctor Who world before in 2007. You played Tish Jones, the sister of companion Martha; now you’re fish-woman Salt. What brought you back?
I have such fond memories of working on Doctor Who. It was one of my first TV jobs and there was so much buzz around the show. I’ve seen Russell T Davies socially and in passing over the years. When he reached out about this project, I was really, really excited. But I was also kind of curious and a bit trepidatious, knowing that the character is an amphibian, and it’s something very, very different.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Getty
Yes, as Salt you’re pretty unrecognisable…
I’ve never done such a large-scale creature-character. I thought it would be a really interesting acting challenge, physically. Without spoiling too much of the magic, I spent three hours in hair and make-up every morning with Georgia Brown and Samantha Di Giuseppe. It’s quite a surreal experience as an actor, I think, to look in a mirror and almost not recognise yourself. You’re liberated from all the usual tools you have. Suddenly you don’t have curly hair and brown skin. You’re free to create something completely different. You have what you bring: your face, your physicality.
Three hours! Wasn’t that exhausting?
It was an arduous process, I’m not going to lie. It’s three hours just to do the face, and there’s the layers of glue and paint. Not to mention when you get into the body, the body armour, the scales and the skin. There were so many pieces, I felt a bit like Frankenstein’s monster!
Once you’re all made up… who is Salt, exactly?
She’s a warrior. She’s a mother. She’s an ambassador, and she has a very regal presence. She’s a fierce protector of her species, and she meets Barclay [Russell Tovey’s character] in this negotiation process to defend the rights of her people who have been under the sea for many years, dormant, until now.
It’s a bit of a parable for climate change — has it made you think about your own habits?
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Oh my gosh, I know. Here I am, just drinking a glass of water, right? There is a whole sequence about a polluted glass of water in the show. There’s a plastic apocalypse in one episode. Now, every time I see a river or the sea, I do re-evaluate what we’ve done to it, and think about things we take for granted. Russell has done such a beautiful job — and Pete McTighe, the other writer on the show — of illustrating that in a really epic, visceral way that we can understand. Yes, we’re talking about the planet and climate change and the pollution of the oceans. But also, there’s a lot to be said about how we treat other people that we don’t necessarily relate to or think are “one of us”.
Authors
Huw FullertonCommissioning editor
Huw Fullerton is a commissioning editor for Radio Times magazine handling comedy, entertainment and specialist drama. In a previous regeneration, he covered all things sci-fi and fantasy for RadioTimes.com.
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