'Growing up, I was so desperate to find my safe space and my community'

With a starring role in a new 'Doctor Who' spin-off series, Russell Tovey sits down with Helen Coffey to talk climate change, incel culture, and queer representation on screen

- 

Russell Tovey isn’t, on the face of it, typical “leading man” material. With his Essex accent, expressive face and those trademark ears, the 44-year-old sat squarely in the category of “character actor” for many years, injecting light relief into a spread of supporting roles amid stellar ensemble casts. He was the slow but diligent Rudge in History Boys; Billericay geezer Budgie in Gavin and Stacey; lovesick John Chivery in Little Dorrit. Often the winsomely comedic bridesmaid, hardly ever the bride.

Things have shifted, slowly but surely, over the past five years. His heartbreaking turn as Daniel Lyons in the Russell T Davies miniseries Years and Years earned him a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination in 2019; being cast as Detective Patrick Read in American Horror Story: NYC in 2022 introduced him to a global audience. More recently, his portrayal of Andrew in 2025's romantic indie thriller Plainclothes, about an undercover police officer tasked with entrapping gay men in Nineties New York, is currently being considered for a Bafta.

Still, it feels apt that his latest spell in top-of-the-call-sheet territory, in new Doctor Who spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea, sees him take on the character of unlikely hero. Another Russell T Davies-created triumph, the show sees Tovey play Barclay, a very ordinary man who becomes embroiled in the extraordinary when he's unexpectedly chosen as ambassador for humankind. Forced to negotiate with Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), leader of the ancient “homo aqua” species who have lived in the world's waters for millennia, he's your classic everyman protagonist - swept up in an epic journey after being in the right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) place at the right time.