David Tennant on returning as BAFTAs host: "I'm not interested in picking fights"

Don’t look at me if anything goes wrong. For an event like this, there is such an extraordinary team of people who know exactly what they’re doing and how the whole thing works. I am very much a novice, because it’s not my world, so there’s not much expectation on me to figure out what happens next if something goes wrong. There’s a support network and structure that makes one feel very safe. One of the great advantages of hosting is that it’s all written down for me, so I don’t even have to learn the words. That is the bit about my day job that is most anxiety inducing, so it’s nice to have that removed.

The BAFTAs are supposed to be kind. Last year we weren’t trying to roast people, but there was a joke about Cate Blanchett, and she looked a little bit annoyed, a little bit pissed off. And I remember going, “Oh God, no. I think you’re brilliant. I was just trying to be witty and make a point about how you’ve got lots of prizes, and we love you.” So, I think if I’ve learned anything, it’s probably that I’m not interested in picking fights or making anyone feel in any way uncomfortable. If I have a style, it’s only that.

I get star-struck, all the time. The bit that you can’t prepare for with hosting an awards show is when you’re actually up there, and the front five rows are the most famous people in the world, and they’re all sort of staring up at you with expectation and their own personal anxieties if they’re there to compete. That’s the bit that is a little bit thrilling… but also intimidating.

I don’t feel, internally, “famous”. I have an awareness of a lack of anonymity. Any sense of success is all shrouded in Scottish Presbyterianism. So none of it ever feels like you can fully enjoy it, or feel entirely relaxed, because that would be presumptuous. As a nation, we are always much more comfortable slagging ourselves off.

My parents were never against me being an actor. There’s an element of performance in being a minister in the pulpit so my dad [Tennant’s father was a Church of Scotland minister] definitely understood the impulse. But they just wanted, as parents do, to know that you were settled with a regular wage, and you could feed yourself, pay your rent, maybe have a house one day. I get that now completely as all my children seem to drift towards acting. I’m like, “I can’t tell you not to, but there are also other jobs!”

Being without my parents now is miserable. My mum never got to meet any of my kids, and that’s a bit heartbreaking, because she would have loved them. My dad got to meet all but one, and that – obviously – was wonderful, but their memories of him are fading…

My parenting style is different. Because my parents were very consistent and very solid, I never doubted for a second that they were absolutely committed to us without that ever being stated. That’s the bit that’s quite interesting, because in our house now, everyone’s saying "I love you" all the time. It’s lovely, and I love it, but it’s very foreign to me. I don’t remember that ever being said in our house growing up. I mean, I never doubted it was true but it was never said out loud.

I’m very protective of my children. When you know that it can be really horrible being “famous”, I think you try and protect your kids from the worst of it, while enjoying some of the privileges. As a parent, you try to have the best of both worlds, and inevitably you fail. But that, I suppose, is the aspiration, and that allows you to alleviate the guilt over the s**t stuff that visits.

My favourite role is… usually the one I’m most recently involved in. I’m fickle like that. So right now, it’s probably Macbeth [with Cush Jumbo]. It’s on at the Harold Pinter Theatre and it’s very alive to me at the moment.

I don’t know that acting roles change you. Obviously, while you’re working on a part, you can get quite involved in a lot of detail about a sort of person that you wouldn’t necessarily choose to spend time with, but that’s the job. You’re trying to understand the version of humanity that spat forth that particular psychology. It’s a puzzle.

It’s very hard to empathise with someone like Dennis Nilsen. Objectively, I don’t think I did [Tennant played the serial killer in the the 2020 drama Des]. But, subjectively, I could make sense of the decisions he made. You have to try and get inside that mindset. When Nilsen did something like murder, he thinks, "Well, I’m in this deep, I might as well keep going, because I can’t actually go back any more".

So I’m trying to unlock that – not to validate it, or be sympathetic towards it. But for the purposes of this piece of work, I have to inhabit that as truthfully as I can.

You don’t film something because you want a prize at the end of it. But then, if you’re suddenly put in the running for an award, then you find yourself wanting to win it and feeling like a big, massive loser if you don’t.

An award might represent a pinnacle in someone’s career, but ultimately, they don’t matter. It’s all a fabricated nonsense, and either you do work that you are proud of, or you don’t. From an industry point of view, they’re about generating attention to projects so that more people watch them, which is why you make anything – so that it connects with people, and they appreciate it. And then people who win get to make more things. They mean things professionally to people, but I don’t suppose they change their life. Still, they’re a lovely thing to receive – and it’s nicer to win one than to not…

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The EE BAFTA Film Awards will air on BBC One from 7pm on 16th February 2025.

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