Bill Nighy: "David Bowie was kind of my guy growing up."
He has been a squid-faced ghost pirate, a zombie and a vampire or two. But Bill Nighy has never been an alien. He has fixed that now in the television series The Man Who Fell to Earth. He's not just any alien, either - he's Thomas Jerome Newton, the character David Bowie made his own in the 1976 Nicolas Roeg movie of the same name, adapted from Walter Tevis' 1963 novel.
And Nighy's not just another Newton. Effectively, the 72-year-old is Bowie's Newton 45 years later, still earthbound, still blind from his cruel treatment by the authorities, still hitting the bottle, and still, well, off the planet.
But this time he's not really the man of the title. That's Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays Faraday, another alien from Newton's dying planet, Anthea. He has been seemingly summoned to Earth by his senior extraterrestrial and has to learn to appear human just as Bowie's starman did.
The series riffs on its Bowie ancestry in other ways - the 10 episodes are named after his songs, beginning with Hallo Spaceboy and ending with The Man Who Sold the World. Having made the choice to retain the Newton-Bowie character in the update, showrunner Alex Kurtzman says getting the casting right was a challenge.
"It was a double-edged sword because, on the one hand, the biggest mistake we could probably make would be to try to invoke or evoke David Bowie in any way. Because he was so singular that all we could do would be to fail, right?
この記事は New Zealand Listener の May 7 - 13, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は New Zealand Listener の May 7 - 13, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Spilt milk
Excess dietary calcium goes into toilets, not bones.
To the Max
The testosterone and torments of late adolescence are centre stage in this novel about finding your place in life.
A chemical killer
A new book outlines the life of a woman who may well have been New Zealand’s most prolific poisoner. What was it that led police to exhume the body of her husband from its watery grave?
Creating the WOW factor
Meg Williams, in charge of the biggest festival involving a bunch of people wearing wacky outfits, admits she's not very flamboyant in her own dressing.
Leaving it all on the park
After cancer treatment, Graeme Downes takes stock of a musical life leading The Verlaines and lecturing future generations of songwriters.
Wrong message
A UK journalist who came here to talk about Rwanda’s authoritarian regime found herself the victim of a social media hate campaign.
Busting a gut
IBD is escalating, seemingly thanks to the Western lifestyle, and New Zealand has one of the highest rates in the world.
The point of Peters
There's been much to admire about the NZ First leader's politics over the years, but where has it got him?
Don't call us ...
Finland's ingenuity galvanised the rapid global uptake of cellphones, so it's paradoxical the country's latest claim to fame should be the elevation of no-speakies to a new commercial opportunity.
He is here
In the week my brother died, there was a storm in the universe.