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 mini-series 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.
Though the fate of all life on Earth may not have rested on his shoulders, Tovey, similarly, has been on a journey. He started acting early, while still at school, and segued into a solid career as a performer despite receiving no formal training. Having come out “to himself” at 15 or 16, he told his parents he was gay at the age of 18 and, in contrast to some of his peers, was open about his sexuality from early on in his career.
With this latest primetime project, Tovey is unmistakably cementing his leading man era. For the first time in years, there will be no Doctor Who Christmas special come 25 December. The War Between the Land and the Sea, then, is not only the final collaboration between the BBC and Disney as part of their Doctor Who deal; it will be the sole offering from the Whoniverse over the festive period, with all the accompanying anticipation and expectation.
“A show this big will have a lot of eyes on it,” Tovey tells me over video call. Dressed down in a khaki-coloured hoodie and glasses, he speaks with a quiet confidence about the coming storm, though. “It’s magic, but the pressure is what one puts on oneself – you just want it to be the best it can be…”
Read the full interview below:
Anything to do with Doctor Who has such a devoted fanbase. Did you feel the weight of that going into this?
I didn’t really think of the legacy of Doctor Who. I’m aware of it, of course, but this show is so different, so deeply human.
Then again, on the first day of the table read, there were hundreds of people in the room. There was me and Gugu in the middle with everyone fanning out all around, and I remember thinking: “This is intense. This is a lot of people.” And I guess there is pressure there. Everyone’s always like, “It’s a table read, it doesn’t matter, we’re just experimenting!” But you know that if it doesn’t work, there might be conversations afterwards…
What is it like to be the lead on set?
As I’ve progressed in my career and been given bigger roles, I’ve realised that there are so many things that go into being an actor. There’s obviously your craft. But also, there’s the actual professionalism of what it is to lead a set. When I was younger, it wasn’t something that went through my mind. But as I’ve got older, I’ve realised that’s really fundamental; it’s so important that you are a great team player, that you are there for everyone else. And everybody in the cast and crew on this was so in love with each other when we were making it – everyone was deeply emotional when we finished.
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You’ve worked with Russell T Davies several times now – would you basically say “yes” to him, no matter what the project?
Of course! When I was cast in the Doctor Who Christmas special [as Midshipman Frame in the episode “Voyage of the Damned” in 2007], it was at the height of David Tennant’s reign. When that came my way, I felt a shift in my visibility as an actor and how people saw me. And then when Years and Years happened, I felt so honoured that Russell had circled back to me and wanted me to play this integral character that had such heart … For him to then circle back again and offer me the lead role in this show – I’m just full of gratitude for it. I never take it for granted when he considers me.
He obviously has actors he stans. You’re in the special Russell T Davies club now…
The RTD rep – it’s like the RSC back in the day. Yeah, it’s an honour to be one of the gang. There’s this real loyalty from him. Ruth Madeley, who played my sister in Years and Years, is back in The War Between…. Her and Russell make each other howl with laughter; they adore each other. It’s heaven to be around.
In The War Between…, your character is just a regular Joe forced by circumstance to step up and lead. Is it more powerful because we can all relate?
I hope that many, many people can see themselves in him and then feel inspired to do something – that they see that every man can be the most important man. Barclay is someone who gets chosen because of kindness, because of showing empathy. He’s thrust into this terrifying place, out of his depth, but when he’s there, he doesn’t choose anger or violence. He’s calm and peaceful and shows respect to this lifeform that people are othering. It’s such a beautiful message that what he’s seen and celebrated for are his sensitivities, for being soft and kind – especially as a man.
The show is obviously sci-fi, but also about the way we’re polluting our planet. Can storytelling make people care?
If you dramatise it, it exists. And if you see it through the emotional lens of a character that you become attached to, then you put yourself in that situation. If you look at things like Mr Bates vs The Post Office, we wouldn’t have known about that scandal if ITV hadn’t done that drama. If you look at Adolescence, there are certain generations that had no idea about incel culture and the actual epidemic that is happening to our young men. Even though it’s about a fictional family, this real thing is actually happening, destroying the brains of our youth. How brilliant that art is able to do that: to start and shift conversations.
People seem so fatigued and paralysed by climate change. How can we change the dial?
If you watch a David Attenborough documentary, it’s the bit at the end when he goes, “It’s not too late. If we do this now, there’s hope.” We have to have hope. I think we need to celebrate the wins that we’ve had as humanity. I remember when, years ago, it was all about the hole in the ozone layer. We needed to change our ways, and we did change our ways. We stopped putting CFCs in fridges and deodorants. The hole in the ozone layer closed up – that’s why we don’t hear about it any more. Why are we not celebrating that humanity did that? Why is there not Ozone Layer Day, where we go, “Wow, wasn’t that amazing? We did that. What else can we do if we put our minds to it?”
In the show, your character is inspired by his teenage kid to want to do better. Can the next generation save us – or is that too much pressure?
I mean, we’ve given them a lot of f***ing work. I believe in the youth, absolutely. I believe that they’re activated, and feel like they have a voice, and they’re angry, and they want change. At the same time, a worrying percentage of young men are in the manosphere, indoctrinated into the cult of incel culture, and they’re heavily right-wing. And that is absolutely terrifying to me. We have a responsibility, all of us, to show an alternative, to choose empathy, to find opportunities to communicate with and inspire people not to choose those patterns of thought.
Your child is non-binary in the show. Does that kind of queer representation on screen help normalise being LGBTQ+?
It’s radical, that’s the truth. Growing up, when I saw Queer as Folk, it terrified the life out of me, but it was so important to see that representation on mainstream TV. That was life-changing.
What’s beautiful about [Davies’s] writing is that there’s no drama around sexuality, around gender, around the way people identify. It just is, because that is the world. And once you get to the point where there isn’t this culture war conversation going on, that’s utopia.
Has society become more accepting of queerness since you started out?
Being queer feels like the cha-cha-cha. It’s constantly moving between being safe, not safe. Like, is it OK to be this version of yourself? It’s horrific the way that it’s just bandied around as political rhetoric when we’re talking about actual people’s humanity.
But it’s so inspiring to see the advances in how people feel about themselves and how they can identify – and who they can look to, who the “possibility models” are. Growing up, I was so desperate to find my safe space and my community. I was lucky enough to be working as an actor and I met my people, who thought and felt like me – or, if they didn’t, they still gave me respect for being the way I was.
I was at a dinner recently for Esquire, on a table with [fellow actors] Jonathan Bailey and Andrew Scott and Kadiff Kirwan. We’re all out, we’re all highly visible, we’re all activists. And I sat there and I thought, we didn’t have this as kids. If I’d seen us, just sat around at a dinner party in a magazine, that would have made such a difference to me.
The War Between… is coming out over the festive period. What will you be doing for Christmas?
I’m always with my family – whether they come to me or I go to them in Billericay in Essex.
Like Budgie in Gavin & Stacey?!
Yes! That’s why it’s set there, because I was doing History Boys with James Corden when they were writing it, and I kept banging on about Billericay…
Any essential Christmas telly?
Every year, if Love Actually is on, that’s my go-to. And Die Hard. Oh, and Gremlins always appears at Christmas, so I will obviously sit and watch that after a few glasses of red wine. That’s amazing.
‘The War Between the Land and the Sea’ will air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 7 December
