Peter Capaldi on playing a "sympathetic serial killer" and Doctor Who parallels

Season 1 saw Gideon, a man who is reborn every time he dies and who has devoted his life to prevent terrible tragedies from happening, locked in a cell.

But at the end of the season, he escapes and, this time around, he's unleashed onto the world as he and Jessica Raine's Lucy Chambers form an uneasy alliance to attempt to stop a devastating incident.

"I think I do empathise with him," Capaldi tells RadioTimes.com in an exclusive interview. "What's driving him is a desire to keep people, ironically, safe - and he's trapped.

"He has knowledge that traps him to a position where he either does nothing or he acts upon this knowledge. The path that he's chosen is a dangerous one."

If season 1 was a supernatural mystery, season 2 is an all-out thriller, with Gideon and Lucy racing against the clock and grappling with their newfound alliance.

"There's more action," Capaldi points out. "It's probably more of a thriller than the last one was. It still has its cosmic and psychological horror vibe about it, but I think it moves much more quickly, and there's a ticking bomb in it that has to be dealt with. It moves more speedily."

Raine adds: "It's a really uneasy relationship [between Gideon and Lucy]. He's basically come into her life and completely uprooted everything, and he talks in riddles, and he's a difficult character to bond with, because he's holding the knowledge of all these lives, so they're kind of forced together to work together for the greater good."

Crucially, Gideon has escaped from his cell and, for Capaldi, that meant one thing that he's had to get pretty used to over the years – an outrageous amount of running.

"It's a much more physical sort of thing, really, because he never quite still," Capaldi explains. "He's always planning and trying to deal with stuff.

"And so, whereas last [season], he held all the secrets, he had a lot of big speeches where he explained what was going on, this time, he's much more active. But he still holds the key to the unique kind of view of the world that the program has."

One of the key differences is that audiences have somewhat more of a sense of who Gideon is now – but that doesn't mean the mystery is gone. In fact, after asking writer Tom Moran if he could be more humanised last season, this time, Capaldi was gunning for more of a "cosmic" feel to the character.

"I went the other way this time, probably because there was more grounded stuff. Last time, it was just me in a cell, and so I requested that we give him more humanity in that what he does has a cost, because I think originally, it was slightly more veiled – I wanted to make him more vulnerable.

"But this time, because he's out and about in the world, we see him doing things and we see the cost to him, so this time I said, 'Let's make sure he's still a bit cosmic.'

"Poor Tom! I'm always asking him for more. I don't want grounded, I want cosmic this time!"

Of course, "cosmic" is something Capaldi is very, very good at to say the least. While he's been open about how he won't return to Doctor Who, there are moments in The Devil's Hour that may get a knowing smile from Whovians, with Gideon describing himself in season 1 as having "a complicated relationship with time".

Capaldi looks back fondly on Doctor Who, saying: "It was just an incredible experience. Suddenly, you're in the middle of this fantastical world, surrounded by people who love Doctor Who.

"I was watching Tom Baker talking about something, and he said that when he was Doctor Who, he would do tons and tons of publicity and stuff, because being Doctor Who was much more fun than being Tom Baker, and I would say the same, probably, being Doctor Who is much more fun than being me.

"Certainly, you're in a very privileged position, because you receive the affection for that character. It is a character, it's not me, and it's a delightful place to be. It would be a hard part to sustain, I think, forever, but you do see the best of people, which is lovely."

While he's not actively seeking out more time-bending roles, he admits: "Obviously, I seem to have some facility for impersonating these characters who have this weird relationship with time. It's just being the kind of actor – you bring yourself to everything, really."

He adds: "There are little overlaps [with Doctor Who], which is fine, but [as an actor], you learn a certain skill about how you look angry or look sad or whatever. But actually, actors really are an accumulation of their life and their life's experiences and also their roles.

"So that role [the Doctor] comes with me, as does Malcolm Tucker or other roles that I've played, and they're with me because they all have this face, so they do me a favour, because they come and suggest to the audience that there's more to me than there actually is."

It's not just Capaldi that creates the "cosmic" feel on the show, though, with the actor and his co-star Raine heaping praise on director Johnny Allan – not least for the creepy Easter eggs peppered in throughout the season.

"There's an incredible moment, I think it's in episode 1, with Lucy in Dr Bennett's office, and it's chilling," Raine explains. "It's my shot, I'm foreground, but in the background, there's a small eight-year-old child that's just peeping out from behind the curtain.

"And it's literally just a second and then the shot goes somewhere else. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up."

Capaldi adds that moments like these are "a testament to the to the skill and talent of our directors".

He points out: "This show really is has blossomed because of the direction, because to create that sense of unease and these chills and these sudden frights and stuff like that, that's a really skilful and complex task.

"[Allan] will talk about how, if you hang on to one shot a little longer than the audience expects, it kind of disrupts their rhythm, because they're used to things being cut at a certain speed.

"But if you alter that speed and just have a shot of someone sitting on a sofa, perhaps for three seconds longer than they should, you think, 'Something odd's going to happen.'"

While season 2 is just being released, filming on season 3 is well underway, beginning in March 2024.
"This is a three season thing," Capaldi confirms. "So it will complete, it will reach an end. It's not like we'll do a third season and then a fourth. It will end, the story will be drawn to conclusion."
While we currently have no idea of what to expect for how the show will bow out, Capaldi's got one big hope for Gideon: "It'd be nice to get some peace. He may end up in a peaceful situation.

"He's troubled by the world as a conscious conscience, ironically, because he is always killing people, but he would like the world to be better – but actually, he can't control it, even though he tries to."

The Devil's Hour season 2 will stream on Prime Video from 18th October 2024 – you can sign up now for a free 30-day Prime Video trial.

If you’re looking for something else to watch in the meantime, check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide, or visit our dedicated Fantasy hub. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.