Ben Whishaw on Black Doves: "A queer assassin had a certain interest for me"
Whishaw spoke with Radio Times magazine about his character Sam in the new Netflix spy thriller.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
He may have played Q, the hi-tech briefing Quarter-master of 007, with a boffin-like knowledge of life-saving gadgets that is legendary, but Ben Whishaw himself is the polar opposite. We are discussing how ageing it is when one’s fingers don’t race swiftly over the keyboard of a mobile phone. How quick are his? “I can do it quite fast, but if I look at my niece and nephew, they’re on a whole other level of aptitude.”
So he isn’t a technological whizz? “Not at all,” he says. “No, I’m very bad with technology, sadly.” He actually does sound mournful. Does it genuinely bother him? “Not really, but sometimes you do feel inadequate. I should probably have a better grasp of it all.”
Whishaw is gentle and engaging and has a great range as an actor. There’s something subtle about his performances, whether as the tragic young poet John Keats in Bright Star, directed by Jane Campion, or his fantastic, constantly shifting portrayal – from slyly manipulative, to fragile, to courageous, as well as inadvertently comedic – of Norman Scott, the lover of Jeremy Thorpe, in 2018 BBC mini-series A Very English Scandal.
The actor had standout acclaim for his 2004 Hamlet at the Old Vic, at the age of 23, only a year after leaving Rada – with much being made in the build-up of him being an unknown, state-educated youth from Bedfordshire. And, then, there are his adorable voiceovers for the Paddington films and the clumsy bear’s encounter with the late Queen Elizabeth II for her Platinum Jubilee weekend, in June 2022.
Did he meet the Queen? He didn’t go to Buckingham Palace for the filming, but had met her when she visited Rada as patron of the drama school: “She came and shook our… No, no,” he corrects himself with a grin – “we didn’t shake, we genuflected to Her Majesty. I did think she was lovely in that sketch.” It was only three months later that she died at the age of 96, so she must have been quite frail. “Yes, it was touching, actually, as well as kind of amazing.”
He is reminded that Keats – “I often think about him” – died when he was only 25; Whishaw has just turned an elfin 44. How does he feel about ageing? “I feel great. I mean, what can you do? It’s inevitable, so we need to accept it, don’t you think?”
In April 2023, he was sent the script to two episodes of Black Doves; they started shooting in October, finishing in March. He is tremendously attractive in the role of Sam Young; cool, laconic, deadpan, mysterious, sexy, with a secret sadness, coupled with his luminous skin, green eyes and coal-black hair. What drew him to the part?
“I enjoyed that it trod a line between being vaguely ludicrous and thrilling and funny and dark. I liked that it has this combination of things. I was up for something fun – and a queer assassin had a certain interest for me. I wanted to read more.”
He’s talked quite a lot about how his paternal grandfather served in the German army during the Second World War, while working as a spy for the British government. “Yes, our real family name is Stellmacher and he was Russian-German – actually, he had a Ukrainian mother,” the actor corrects himself, "and a German father".
He says that, regrettably, he doesn’t speak any other languages. His grandfather’s name was originally Jean Vladimir Stellmacher, which he changed to John Victor Whishaw: “I knew him, but he died when I was about 13.
"He was quite a scary man – very silent, very forbidding, and I mostly remember him sitting in an armchair, smoking. He had an ashtray in the shape of a skull, which he flicked his ash into. He was a troubled soul, but then his was a troubled generation and they were difficult times.”
He’s been in some other spy thrillers, like the BBC’s London Spy in 2015 and, of course, with his grandfather having been an actual spy, one wonders whether he could imagine himself as one? "No, no, no – you have to be so clever and… I guess it must require a certain coldness in your deepest self. Or some kind of strange, profound conviction or something. You’d have to have a kind of steel that I couldn’t say I have."
We are drawing to a close and my Christmas questions loom. “I go to see my mum [he describes her as being “very beautiful”] and as she is also a twin [he has a fraternal twin, James], I usually spend Christmas Day with her and her twin sister, my Auntie Carol. And then on Boxing Day, I go to see my dad. I also see my brother and I do enjoy Christmas for my niece and nephew.”
How was this time for you when you were little? “I remember loving Christmas as a child and finding it a very magical time.”
As for Christmas telly: “I’m going to say my favourite television, because for some reason it’s what I frequently revert to – Victoria Wood. I love to watch her. I think she was a great genius and I spent a lot of my childhood watching her. I still find her hilarious and strangely comforting.
“I’m in a show at the moment [one of the masterpieces of modern theatre, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett] and Sunday is such a day of exhaustion, before it begins on Monday, that I’m just on the couch – and I watch Victoria Wood repeats.”
And as for Black Doves, the television show he’s promoting now, he’s happy there’s a second series and, yes, I do know whether he’s going to be in it or not. But, to quote the famous spy line – I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.
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Black Doves is available to stream on Netflix from 5th December. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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