Peter Capaldi on “More Action-y” Devil’s Hour Season 2 and the Difficulty of Playing Doctor Who

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The Devil’s Hour started out shrouded in secrecy. During the season 1 press tour, Peter Capaldi couldn’t give away more than that he played a serial-killing vigilante with “some degree of clairvoyance.”

The finale showed that Capaldi’s character, Gideon Shepherd, was living his life in a time loop. He used his foreknowledge to right wrongs, to violent effect if necessary. His superpower was revision, the ability to memorize a lifetime of grisly crimes in order to prevent them happening the next time around.

“It’s not very glamorous, is it?” Capaldi laughs. “A superhero with a uniform made of notepads.”

Season 1 presented Capaldi with a new kind of acting challenge.

“I was basically chained to a table for two weeks,” he says, remembering the interrogation room set in which he spent most of the first season. “Usually, one of the things I do when I’m acting is to try to find movement, energizing scenes, finding things to do, walking in and out, sitting down. When you couldn’t do any of that at all, that was very interesting.”

When we speak to Capaldi, he’s just read an “enormous” email from Amazon dictating what he can’t talk about. But he can confirm that in season 2 he’s no longer chained to that table. Gideon Shepherd is out and about.

“It was all a bit action-y,” Capaldi says. “If the first [season] was a kind of dark, unsettling, cosmic, supernatural story, this is slightly more thriller-esque. The characters are out in the world trying to stop things happening.”

In season 1, Capaldi played the only character fully aware of the time loop, but he didn’t let that knowledge weigh him down.

“It sounds contrary because of the nature of this character, but I like to try to be in the moment and alive to what’s happening in that scene and making it feel real,” he explains. “That means, to some extent, removing foreknowledge. [Gideon] has knowledge of how things are going to fall, rather than what will happen moment to moment.”

In season 2, Gideon will have an ally in the form of social worker/detective (depending on the timeline) Lucy Chambers (Jessica Raine). Lucy will help Gideon hunt a new threat, and while she’s more aware of the time loop this time around, she still has a lot to learn.

“She doesn’t understand the way that [Gideon] understands, and his own understanding of what’s going on is challenged also,” Capaldi says. “He’s been pursuing this target for a long time, or many, many loops. He’s surprised to find his idea of what it all means changing. He’s not quite as smart as he thought he was. The universe and the cosmos are smarter and darker.”

We can only talk about The Devil’s Hour’s meddling time traveler for so long before invoking that other time traveler. How does Gideon differ from Doctor Who’s Twelfth Doctor? “It’s not for me to judge that it is different! Many years ago, a wise old actor said to me, ‘You don’t become the part; the part becomes you.’ All the characters I play are essentially versions of myself, for good or for bad.

“The Doctor understands almost everything, which is why he’s so difficult to play,” Capaldi explains. “Gideon’s not like that. He’s human. He only has his human capacity to draw upon.”

Despite keeping it close to his chest, Capaldi also understands everything—at least everything that will happen in The Devil’s Hour. He’s already filmed the third and final season.

“Some months ago, we wrapped on season three. It goes onto another level then, but it definitely concludes,” Capaldi says. 

Of course, with a TV series about time loops, even the most definite ending may not be all that definite.

“If you’re sharp enough, you’ll see that everything that goes on now in season two is pointing to what happens in season three,” Capaldi concludes. “Which in itself reaches back to season one….” 

All episodes of The Devil’s Hour season 2 drop Oct. 18 on Prime Video.