When Welsh theatre actor Gareth David-Lloyd signed on for a supporting role in Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, he didn't realise he was signing on for a whole new life.
Ahead of his appearance at Supanova, the man known to legions of fans as Ianto Jones talks conventions, Star Trek and prog metal.
Thanks for getting up bright and early, Gareth. You're coming out to Australia for Supanova, but this isn't your first trip out here, is it?
No, this'll be my third.
Wow. Do you enjoy these conventions?
Oh, absolutely. Supanova is one of the greatest conventions I do. The fans are all so welcoming, and the organisers make sure we have a great time. Yeah, it's one of the highlights of my year, definitely.
When you got into acting, did you think these conventions would become part of the job? Do you see them as being part of the job?
I do now, but it was a bit weird at first. Especially when I finished Torchwood and I was still going to conventions. A lot of people were asking me questions and asking for my autograph and they were still just as interested in the character and the show as they were before. I had a few issues with that. It was like, 'I don't feel like this is work; I'm not acting or anything'.
But it's what the fans want, and with the time they've invested, they sort of deserve it. So I'm down with it now. It's part of the job, and I've been able to see the whole world. I've learned to stop being so cerebral and just go with the flow.
You obviously interact with a lot of fans at these conventions. Are most of them awestruck in your presence? Do they keep their cool? How do those interactions tend to go?
I don't have many cryers, I suppose. There's only been one or two who have come up and just burst into tears. You know, it's very humbling and very flattering, but I'm very aware it's the character who's had such an impact on them.
But it feels good, and I feel it's an accomplishment as an actor that I've helped create a character that's had that big an impression on somebody's life. You know, a lot of fans I meet now are fans I've met before, but even four years after Ianto was written out, they still want to hear me talk about the character. Which is great.
What do you think it was about that character that people responded to?
I think Torchwood as a whole had a great element of real human behaviour. All the characters, whether they were the main character or not, were flawed and human. From the beginning, the Torchwood characters were easy to relate to on a human level, maybe moreso than some of the characters on Doctor Who, who tend to be very heightened because it's a family show.
With Ianto, in particular, I was able to be part of that process of him growing, this organic process of finding the character and finding the most real way to play him. I think that, against the backdrop of this sci-fi world, made him more real and made the sci-fi more scary. When you can relate to a human character, it makes their surroundings more believable, I suppose. That's something Torchwood did differently to a lot of sci-fi shows.
When you first got involved with the show, did you know what you were getting into? It's certainly a lot edgier than Doctor Who. Did you guys all know that going in?
I definitely knew it was a show for adults. But what shocked me the first couple of scripts was that you had this glitzy sci-fi character, Captain Jack Harkness, and he was in Cardiff, and he had to be surrounded by Welsh people, and despite the comic book persona of Captain Jack, all the Welsh people were written so realistically, with such lovely comedy on top. Dark comedy, a lot of it. That was the first thing I noticed.
I didn't know it was going to get so into Ianto's sexuality and Ianto's past and Ianto's humanity. I was lucky as an actor, in a way. When I got the first script, I had a couple of lines and it was this great opportunity to be in this sci-fi show with real Welsh people in it. Then, to discover later on that we were going to go even further into the depths of humanity and explore the darker side of Ianto, beneath the suit, beneath his hard exterior... I did feel like I was part of the process of finding Ianto.
So the whole experience, from beginning to end, was exciting and new. It changed my life.
When your character was eventually killed off, there was a lot of reaction from fans. I think people liked how the story developed, but were sad that you were no longer in the show. Were you happy with how it shook out?
Well, like I said, Ianto was an organic character, and no one in the Torchwood team was ever safe. Anybody could die at any time. I was expecting to go in the first series. I didn't think the character would be explored as much as he was. So I felt lucky, I felt very lucky, to have lasted as long as I did.
I'm proud of Ianto's story arc. I think he started with issues and problems, and I think he finished as a brave, resolved human being. I think it was a great arc to play over three series, and exciting, because I didn't know from one day to the next what was going to happen. It was nice to get to the end of the second series and know I was still alive.
When you first read, or were told – however it happened – that you weren't going to be in the show anymore, were you shocked? What was your gut reaction?
I was always expecting it. I always made sure that I was expecting it. Even then, when you're told, you do get this feeling like, 'right, this is it'. But I had guessed it was coming. It wasn't a huge bombshell.
I was talking to my agent a couple of weeks before, actually, and he told me, 'yes, the contract for the third series has come in, and you will be required for three or four out of the five episodes'. That was it. That was the only information I had. So I thought, well, either Ianto goes on a holiday, or he bites the dust. And that was the case. But I read the script, I read the story arc, and it was so fantastic. It couldn't have ended any other way.
Yeah. Well, you haven't exactly been absent from people's screens since then. Just last year, you appeared on a couple of shows on the American SyFy channel.
That's right, yeah. Absolutely.
Given your versatile acting background before Torchwood, is there any worry now about being typecast in the science fiction genre?
I'm not worried about that at all, really. It was sci-fi and horror that drew me into acting in the first place, before drama school and all that. I'm very lucky for my training to be as diverse as it was, because I've got experience in a lot of different genres, a lot of different styles... theatre, film, Shakespeare, musicals, I've been very lucky like that.
But to be stuck in sci-fi is not necessarily a bad place to be, especially when you're an ex-Trekkie like I am. Well, I shouldn't say 'ex-Trekkie', because I suppose once you're a Trekkie you're always a Trekkie. I was hugely into it when I was younger.
Given that sort of background, when you go to conventions like Supanova, are there things you geek out about there?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm still scared to speak to the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That was my show when I was growing up. I'm still in awe of those guys. And Robert Englund, I was well into my horror films when I was a kid as well, and Robert Englund was one of my heroes. Christopher Lee, as well.
Have you had a chance to meet these guys at conventions?
I've met Robert Englund. I've been to a lot of conventions when the Star Trek guys have been there, but I'm still a bit nervous about chatting to them. They're still their characters, to me. I can be quite fanboy-ish like that.
Does that make it easier for you to relate to how fans of Torchwood feel when they meet you?
Exactly! I don't profess to have had anywhere near the impact those legends of Star Trek have had, but I've been asked, 'is it weird when you're at a panel and fans ask you questions and they want to know your thoughts and feelings? Is that weird?' And it is weird, it started off weird, but I do sort of understand it, as well, because I had similar feelings when I was younger. If I could have afforded to go to conventions when I was younger, I certainly would have gone to as many as possible.
Yeah. Just before we let you go, I have to ask you about being in The Asylum's version of Sherlock Holmes. That studio's infamous for fast, cheap shoots. I think their claim to fame is that they've never lost money on a movie. Was that a pretty intense experience?
It was an intense experience! Anyone who's part of getting a movie made in ten days is going to have a pretty intense experience! We shot in North Wales, in the beautiful, rugged and jagged countryside up there. It was close to home.
It was very much like guerilla filmmaking. We didn't have a lot of the permits we needed to film in a lot of the places we did. It was a proper old school shoestring budget. If you take that into consideration, and the fact that the whole thing was shot in ten days, and then you watch the final product, what they've done is pretty marvellous and incredible.
They're a great bunch of guys, and the film is... well, a lot of it is comic genius. I'm not sure whether it was meant to be when it was shot, but I can watch every frame of that film with a glass of wine and really enjoy it.
Were you guys aware of that 'comic genius' as you were making it, or did the ridiculousness of it only hit home when you watched the movie? Did you know how silly it was when you were making it?
No! You know, you always try to find the truth in lines. If you manage to do that, and the line is ridiculous, it will hit you later on that the line was completely ridiculous. You have to find the truth in it, and not find the funny side in it. If you're aware of the comedy, it's never as funny.
There were a few lines, talking about monsters or serpents or squids or garden gnomes... you have to believe in it. It was believable and hysterical at the same time.
Sure. And you have to think, by comparison, the Cumberbatch and Downey Jr. Sherlocks are really missing robot dinosaurs and squids, aren't they?
Absolutely! If it was just a rip-off of the Guy Ritchie movie, or just an updated version of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories, it would have no charm. But if you want slightly dodgy CGI squid monsters, there's only one film you can watch to find them in the same place as Sherlock Holmes.
Excellent. This trip to Australia is particularly special, because you're bringing your prog metal band, Blue Gillespie, with you. It seems like you guys have an extensive discography; is this a serious project or just a bit of fun on the side?
Well, it started off when James Marsters asked if I wanted to play a couple of numbers at his concert in Cardiff while we were filming Torchwood. I knew some guys who were already in a band and asked them if they wanted to do a couple of numbers, and they did. We discovered we liked playing music together and started to write a couple of tracks, and before we knew it we had an EP's worth of songs we'd recorded as a sort of demo.
Then we did an acoustic extension of the demo, and we thought we had something there that we enjoyed a lot more than we thought we were going to, so we recorded our first full-length album, Synaesthesia. By the end of that, we felt like we were really on a roll. We were really enjoying it and really enjoying the stories we were telling, enjoying the dynamic of playing together. So the past two years, we've really stepped it up.
We've written a new album, which we released at the beginning of the year, with a strong concept. We've spent a lot of money on recording it and getting it out, and now we're doing our best to get it heard by as many ears as possible, while still being an independent band. It's hard work, but we're going to stay independent, because it is working for us. Our fanbase is growing. Not just within my fanbase, but in the music industry, as well.
Independent of my fans, we are getting some great industry attention. But of course, a lot of Torchwood fans said, 'yeah, I want to listen to what this guy does with his music', and a lot of them have really liked it, and we owe a lot of our publicity and a lot of our reach to those guys. But it is nice that we are getting recognition for being a rock band, and I'm not doing as many music interviews that begin with, 'so, you were an actor in Torchwood... why are you in a rock band?' Now we're getting offered airplay and radio interviews where we just talk about the band, and not about my other career.
Awesome, man. Well, we're out of time, but we can't wait to see you guys in Australia. Thanks for taking the time to talk.
It's been lovely. We're playing the Sunday nights at the conventions, so do try to come and see us.
Gareth David-Lloyd will appear at Supanova Brisbane (RNA Showgrounds, November 9-11) and Adelaide (Adelaide Showground, November 16-18). Blue Gillespie will play The Tempo Hotel (Brisbane) on Sunday November 11 and Enigma Bar (Adelaide) on Sunday November 18.
