Writer Neil Gaiman tells David Tennant how a young boy from the south of England who wanted to be a ‘freelance religion designer’ grew up to create the ground-breaking worlds of Sandman, Good Omens, American Gods and reveals what is still left for him to conquer. Head to STORE.TENNANTPODCAST.COM to get your hands on the brand new David Tennant Does A Podcast With travel cups, metal water bottles and mugs. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @davidtennantpod. New episodes from season 2 coming weekly.
David’s podcast with Neil is live! :) ❤
Neil: Writing Good Omens, episode 3, all the stuff through time, and the enormous battles I had with everybody involved in producing Good Omens, because every single entity involved in Good Omens would look at episode 3 and go [in a snobby tone]: 'Well, you could lose a few of those.'
David: Because there's this whole sequence - I'm sure everyone has seen it - but there's this whole sequence where Aziraphale and Crowley are discovered through human history in various different versions of themselves and as their relationship develops over time, so it was, yes, a bit budget-busting.
Neil: It was utterly budget-busting and I also knew that it would make everything else work. And also it would make the scene I knew I was going to write in episode 3... it would turn that from a scene that was a bit sniffly into one that would break people's hearts [yep, the bandstand scene], because you'd actually spent 28 minutes watching the ups and downs of these two on Earth for 6000 years becoming the only important thing in each other's lives and here is this moment where there are actually... they have two utterly disparate philosophies of existing and Aziraphale cannot go off with Crowley and Crowley cannot leave without him but he has to, and you wind up with a 'Have a nice doomsday' line. But the excitement that I had of writing that stuff and the joy I had knowing that we're going to watch the relationship open like a flower to us, ending in the 1960 with the hand-over of the holy water and there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house - and I knew that because it did that for me - them watching what you and Michael brought to it and it became the most most glorious tentative friendship over thousands of years, that then becomes sort of peculiar and flirty and weird and prickly and funny and glorious, and, you know, it was the one that won me the Nebula Award.
David: It's Michael's and mine favourite sequence as well we've often said, yeah. It's interesting that you talk about that because I remember as that sequence was coming into being and we would sort of occasionally shoot a scene from that amongst all the other scenes from the show and one that was always in the script the Shakespeare's Globe - the first performance of Hamlet in Shakespeare's Globe, but you did change that because initially it was to be full, it was to be a massive hit, and so that we could make it happen necessity became the mother of invention, and you rewrote it and it sort of got better. Is that true?
Neil: It did, it did actually. It was one of those... well, Stephen Moffat had said something to me when I was grumbling to him at the beginning of making Good omens, he said: 'What I do is, whenever they make me cut a scene for budget reasons I try and replace with with a better scene', and I go, okay the scene I just had to cut and rewrite I'm now going to replace with a scene that there will be youtube clips of, people are just gonna love, this is going to be the one that they point to. And I thought that was a fabulous philosophy - rather than going in a sort of grumpy way, so when Douglas came to me and said we can't do Shakespeare and I said: 'Why not? Surely we can afford the Globe?', and he said: 'We can afford the Globe but we can only be in there for five hours. Five hundred extras, bringing them in and out of that space-'
David: And getting them all dressed up as Elizabethans.
Neil: '-is impossible. It breaks the budget and it breaks the time, we can't do it.' And I said: 'Hang on, well then if I'm losing 500 extras can I afford Shakespeare?', and he said: 'Absolutely.' And before you start shooting a scene, as you know, the heads of department and the people who are gonna need to see things and, you know, the camera people and the light and the sound, everybody they come one and they watch a run-through, I've never before seen a crew applaud at the end of a scene except for that Shakespeare scene where you guys, you and Michael and Reese and Adam, our Hamlet, did the run-through of the scene and you had all of these jaded crew at the seven o'clock in the morning just clapping, and it was amazing.
David: The first novel you wrote, of course, was also a collaboration.
Neil: Which was Good Omens.
David: Yeah, with the late Terry Pratchett. And of course in that time you were brand new, I mean, you were writing Sandman at the same time, I think, weren't you, so you-
David: Your star was rising, people were noticing this. But within the world of comic books which I suppose is different to the world of novels.
Neil: We were writing it 1988, early 1989, and I was writing Sandman at the time but nobody really knew who I was, I mean Terry used to say when people would say to us, you know, they'd say to him: 'What was it like collaborating with Neil Gaiman?' and Terry would always say: 'Well, you have to understand, at that time I wasn't Terry Pratchett and he wasn't Neil Gaiman. We were just two blokes who wanted to write together 'cause we thought it would be fun.' I remember, you know, half way through writing Good Omens Terry phoning me up and saying: 'How long have we been doing this for so far?', and I'd say 'Oh don't know, seven, eight weeks?', and he said: 'What's the longest we could keep writing it for?' and I'd say: 'Well, probably about, you know sixteen weeks.', and he said: 'If nobody buys this book, we can swallow that, can't we? We can cope with that.' and I said: 'Yeah, we can cope with that.' And, you know, neither of us knew that what we were writing saleable even, we were writing to amuse each other and our agents put it out for auction and Terry, who at that time I don't think he'd sell a book for more than £15000, phoned in terror as the auction approached to £100000 and said: 'We have to stop this.' and I said: 'Why do we have to stop this?' and he said: 'Well it will come out and they are going to pay a lot of money for it and then it won't sell enough to make up for it and then I won't be able to sell my books anymore.', and I'm like: 'Terry, they'll blame me. If the book doesn't sell, they'll blame me. It's okay.' and he sort of... that calmed him down.
David: Right, it's not like he was the elder statesman at the time 'cause he was to have the huge success, this was a big deal for both of you.
Neil: It was a huge deal for both of us. But no, he was absolutely the master craftsman, and I knew how good he was but the world didn't. So I knew when Terry phoned me up and said: 'Yeah, that thing you sent me, with the baby swap, the Just William thing, are you doing anything with that?', and I said: 'No, I'm writing Sandman.', and he said: "Well, sell me the idea and what you've done, or we can write it together.", and I knew that was absolutely the equivalent of Michelangelo ring you up and say: 'Come on over, let's paint a ceiling together, I'll give you some tips.' and this is an apprenticeship and that I'd get to do an apprenticeship with the master craftsman and that was how I took Good Omens and how I felt about Good Omens.
Neil: I took enormous joy of you telling me that at conventions you’re now seeing more angels and demons than you are time lords.
David: Absolutely, yeah. It’s at least neck in neck and I think most recently probably it may have tipped the balance in Crowley’s and Aziraphale’s - who often come as a pair which is always very pleasing. Two friends who obviously cosplayed together will turn up, yeah. That’s been wonderful to be part of… obviously wonderful to be part of a franchise like Doctor Who, but then to be part of something like Good Omens which has an equal… sort of equally devoted fanbase.
Neil: One of the best things about Good Omens, and there had been many great thing about making Good Omens, was actually getting to meet, work, and eventually become friends with you, it’s been just such a lovely delight.
David: Well, it’s been an equal, probably more of a joy for me so thank you.
