AfterElton.com: Congratulations on the publication of the Torchwood strip. Can you give us a
preview of what happens?
Carole Barrowman: It’s
a story just about Captain Jack, and he is called to a remote island in the
northern part of Scotland.
There’s been a series of bizarre murders, and he goes in to investigate, and
what he discovers is that the murders may have something to do with something
in his past. And that’s all that I’m going to say. [Laughs.]
AE: That sounds very intriguing.
CB: It was originally
a short story that I had written maybe a year or so ago. When John and I were
asked to do the comic, he remembered the story and said that would be pretty
cool as a Captain Jack story. So we kind of reworked my story and made Jack the
focus of it. My story was originally a retelling of the old selkie myth which
is a celtic myth.
AE: I was going to ask you what a selkie is.
CB: It’s a seal that
can take human form. And it usually takes human form when it is threatened in
some way, or the area the selkie is attached to is threatened … I kind of
played around with different parts of the myth.
AE: Do you think the strip shows something new about Captain
Jack that maybe we haven’t seen before?
CB: It’s interesting.
I think it does, and John thought it did. He really wanted Jack to get to Scotland. He
thought that would be cool, given our family background. And then we thought
about wanting to highlight some kind of emotion or something about Jack that we
don’t always see. I think maybe you see an aspect of his compassion, and
there’s certainly an element of guilt in the comic.
AE: While you were working on the writing, how conscious
were you of the fact that it was going to be a comic and that art would come
into play?
CB: From the very
beginning, when John and I met the two artists, who are just amazing, Tommy Lee
Edwards and Trevor Goring. We met them at ComicCon in San Diego last summer, and they had drawn a
limited-edition poster of Captain Jack over the Face of Boe, and when John saw
it he was just stunned. It was probably the best characterization of him that
he’d ever seen. I mean it looked like John as Captain Jack. So we really hit it
off with them, and we said we should do something together. And when John and I
were heading back home, he was asked if he’d do something for Torchwood magazine, and he said, “Oh,
let’s do a comic. That would be kind of fun, and then we could get those two
artists involved.” So from the very beginning we knew the story was going to
involve artwork.
And so, after John
and I had created the actual story, sort of the outline … let’s put Jack on the
island, this is going to happen, and so on … then John sort of turned it over
to me and the artists, and the artists then paneled it, and then I built the
script after the panels were created from our outline. So all the way along we
knew the story had to be carried visually.
AE: What did it feel like when you saw the script with your
art?
CB: It was really
pretty awesome! When Tommy and Trevor started working on the panels, they would
pretty much send me every day what they had worked on. We were really working
under a pretty tight deadline to get this into this particular issue of the
magazine. The first day that they sent me the panel breakdown, I just kind of
sat at my computer, just like, “Oh, sh*t,
this is awesome!” and I printed out all the panels and put them up on the wall
in front of my desk so I could follow them visually while I worked on the
script … but the first time I got a color drawing, John and I both got it at
the same time, and I was just speechless. It was so amazing to see the selkie
the way they’d imagined it and I think John’s response was … he was on his
cellphone, and he said, “I’m looking at it on my cellphone and it’s still f-ing
amazing.” He was on set somewhere and he was looking at it on this tiny little
screen and he still thought it was amazing.
AE: What was it like for you two to collaborate on the
writing?
CB: He pretty much
leaves the writing to me. He is a great storyteller and he’s got a great
imagination, and we really collaborate well together, but he doesn’t do any of
the actual writing … his involvement is very much on the storytelling side,
“Here’s what I think Jack should do,” and “What if we put him here?” Then I’d
shoot a draft to him and sometimes he would say, “I don’t think Jack would say
that.”
AE: Is that how you worked together on Anything Goes?
CB: Absolutely,
that’s exactly how we did. I hung out with him for about seven weeks, and we
told each other stories, we reminded each other of stories, he told me all his
stories. Luckily I had some good journalism training, and pretty much wrote
down and did what you’re doing, recorded everything he said. When I was writing
I just listened to him talk and then I wrote the book from his stories.
AE: Well, lucky for him he’s got such a good writer in the
family.
CB: Yeah, isn’t it?
[Laughs]. I think it’s awesome for him!
Photo credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
AE: I guess it must have been useful for you to be collaborating
with someone who knows this character so well.
CB: Yes, it’s
interesting, because a lot of people have asked me how do you separate John
from Captain Jack. And with the first episodes of Torchwood, or even the first episodes
of Doctor Who, it was harder for me than maybe for others because I had been
such a Doctor Who fan as a kid. And all I could just see was John and Doctor Who.
But it’s actually gotten easier the more I’ve watched and become attached to Captain
Jack, and now it’s a little easier for me to separate the two. So it’s really
nice to be able to have him say, “You know in Jack’s past, this has happened,
so I’m not sure we can say this.” He knows the canon of the character so well.
It’s very helpful. And of course there’s no way I would have been writing this
comic if he hadn’t been Captain Jack. And also the opportunity to write a
variety of different things, having him be Captain Jack and be my brother, has
been pretty awesome too. I’m very lucky.
AE: Do you think you would have been a Torchwood fan even without your brother’s role on it?
CB: Oh yeah, there’s
no doubt about it. In fact, both John and I are big sci-fi fans. I’m a huge Battlestar Galactica fan, and I teach a
course on the future in film and in fiction at the college where I teach, so I
would absolutely be a fan even if he weren’t Captain Jack. In fact, you know
that episode of Doctor Who where they
make that connection that Jack is the Face of Boe? When he read the script, he
was so excited, but he didn’t know who else to call. So he called me in my
office probably pretty late, and he said, “You’ll never believe it!” and I’m
running around my office just screaming because that meant something to me …
AE: Have you visited John on the set?
CB: Many, many times.
When we were working on [his autobiography] Anything
Goes, I spent seven weeks pretty much shadowing him, and a good deal of
that time was on the set when they were filming the second series. And then I was back over there in October and
spent about two or three weeks on this new series that’s coming, Children of Earth.
AE: I hear rumors from time to time about how wild the set
is, with all kinds of raunchy pranks. Is that the case?
CB: They get their
work done and are very professional. But they have a good laugh. They’re good
friends with each other, and when you work that closely with people you kind of
become a family. You know if you get along with your family and hang out
together every day for a long time, you’ll get pretty silly. And if you’ve read
Anything Goes, you know John is
always up for a prank. But as soon as the director would call places, then
everybody is very professional.
AE: I guess Series Two got pretty dark and they needed to
let off steam.
CB: Oh yeah. In fact,
John, in his trailer, he has a whole bunch of toys that are just there, and sometimes
if they wanted to play outside on the set, it’s a huge big warehouse and all
the trailers are out in the parking lot, so there’s a lot of shenanigans going
on in the parking lot. John has nerf balls and footballs and hula hoops and
jump ropes and badminton and a lot of outdoor kids toys. And sometimes when
they’re done you suddenly have a nerf ball fight going from trailer to trailer
and you can’t go between the trailers without getting whammed.
AE: Does he have as good chemistry with Gareth David-Lloyd
off screen as what we see on?
CB: Yeah, they all
really get along. When they’re done filming they go off in their own ways,
they’re not hanging out together by any means. They’ve all got their own families
and so on. But they do all get along very well, and they’ve all got great
senses of humor. That’s the part I really enjoy … They’re the kind of people
you’d want to have a pint with.
AE: You mentioned Children
of Earth. Can you drop any hints about that for us?
CB: Ooo. Let me just
say it is pretty amazing. [Series creator Russell T. Davies] has outdone
himself. Russell has definitely risen to a new height in terms of the writing
of this arc. It’s everything that you would want. But I honestly cannot say
anything else about it.
AE: That’s okay. I’m just happy to hear your enthusiasm
about it.
CB: I did hear John
let something out, though. That you might get to see a bit more of Jack than
you’ve ever seen before.
AE: Did he mean that literally?
CB: Yeah. He did …
it’s going to be brilliant, just brilliant.
AE: Have you ever been the victim of one of these notorious
pranks we hear about?
CB: Oh yeah, oh man.
We’ve got stuff we used to do to each other as kids that he’ll still do to me.
Neither one of us likes to have our necks touched or our faces touched —
whispering sweet nothings in my ear isn’t going to do much for me — and when my
kids were little he of course told them that. And so any time Uncle John was
around he’d hold me down and then my kids would lick my face.
AE: I hope you found a way to get back at him.
CB: Oh, there’s
always ways you can get back. And you have to be really careful because you
know whatever you do, you’re going to get back a thousand times.
AE: Obviously you have a very close relationship. And I
think it’s true of a lot gay men, that they have a closeness with certain
women, whether they’re siblings or friends. Why do you think that might be?
CB: You know, I’ve
thought about this a lot. I have a lot of other gay men in my life, given that
I teach and I think that academia over the years tends to be one of the more
open places to work … Maybe it has something more to do with relationships
rather than gender, in that when you have one that works you stay with it and nurture
it and make it all that you can make it. Because you see how fragile people can
be in terms of accepting if you’re gay.
But I know a lot of
siblings where each of them are straight and they’re quite close. For me, the
fact that John was gay wasn’t a defining part of our relationship. He was just
my brother, and I’m close to my brother. To me it was never an issue in our
relationship. John was gay, and I’m not. And he’s a boy and I’m a girl. That
was never a big defining part of our relationship. I really think it has more
to do with hanging onto relationships that are important and really knowing the
core of who you are, and being gay is just one part of that. You hang onto
those kinds of relationships. I know in terms of other friends, the people that
mean the most to me are the people that know me best.
For me a lot of it
was I was the big sister and he was the baby brother. You look out for that
person. That was an important part of that relationship. As we were growing up
and into young adulthood, it became clear we had similar tastes in literature
and art and music and those kinds of things and that brought us closer
together.
AE: As close as we are, I don’t imagine collaborating with
my sister. We’d kill each other.
CB: Yeah, well we do
have our moments. And for a long time before John moved into the sorts of roles
that he’s been getting, I would always try to pull rank. You know, I’m your big
sister and this is the way it is. But we’ve managed to negotiate that territory
a little better. It’s not like we don’t fight or squabble. Good grief, what
would be the fun if you didn’t do that? And it’s nice for him to have somebody
that he can do that with too, no explanation needed. Be snippy if you need to.
You can just be.
AE: Last question, talking as a Torchwood fan … What’s your favorite episode?
CB: I really like
the episodes where Jack goes back in time or they have a connection to his
past. So my favorite episode of all time is the one, I think it’s called “Jack
Harkness,” where he meets the man whose name he took. Oh my gosh! I sobbed!
It’s one of those episodes where the kiss is at the perfect moment, and it’s so
touching. It speaks so much to what I wish for everyone … that we could dance
with each other and everything will be okay. That’s definitely my favorite
episode of all time.
I have to say I was
on set for most of the filming of the “Meat” episode, the big giant green alien
piece of beef and I like that one a lot too. I like some of monster episodes.
And a third one, if I could get a third pick, is the “Countrycide” one where
the nutso people on the farm in the country are killing everybody.
AE: I love the “Meat” episode because I love the ones that
have a kind of dark sense of humor about them. It was scary but also really
funny in parts.
CB: You would be the
kind of person who would be good to have in the theater with me, because we’d
be laughing and everybody else would be like, what’s their problem? It’s what I
call the Fargo sensibility, you know
where they throw the guy in the chipper and you’re laughing hysterically.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Carole
is an expert on the mystery genre, and if you visit her website (www.carolebarrowman.com),
you can read a number of articles and reviews of current mysteries. I asked her
recommendation of mystery writers that might appeal to a gay audience. And she
was kind enough to email me an entire list that I’m posting here:
* Joseph Hansen's
Dave Bradstetter novels. First one was in 1970.
* Ellen Hart's
"Stage Fright" is set in a Guthrie-like theater where Jane Lawless,
Hart's lesbian restaurateur and amateur detective, finds herself solving a
classic puzzle mystery.
* R.D.
Zimmerman's Todd Mills' series of books. Mills is a gay TV journalist.
* Laurie R.
King's "A Grave Talent" is set in San Francisco.
