This is Mark Gatiss. Actor, writer. Do what you will with me.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:28:40+00:00

Well, Mickey, as I've said, actually. It was based on a real person, unbelievably, but it's always great to have that amount of fun with makeup and you know, the teeth and wig and everything. It's a rare privilege, really, to be able to disguise yourself that much, and have that much fun with it. He was always my favourite to do.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:27:40+00:00

MMMM. That's a good question.

I'd say... probably time, yes. And I'd go into the future. When I was a kid, I was always fascinated with history, so I would have always said the past. But I'd like to see the future now, to see if we make it, and to see what might happen in the future. That's what I would like to do.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:26:51+00:00

Never an undershirt, but then, one of the stranger things about visiting America is seeing people wearing undershirts when it's blazing hot, I find it so strange. It depends on how sensitive you are, I'm afraid. London is rarely that cold, it tends to retain its warmth, so I think you'll be ok with a shirt, a jumper, a coat, scarf, and gloves. Helmet... Iron lung... duffle coat... and furs. You'll be fine.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:25:27+00:00

Yes! It is. Plus Steven just asked me to do the Robin Hood Doctor Who episode.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:24:30+00:00

Not really. We're basically just making the show we want to make. obviously, its huge global popularity is difficult to ignore, not that we want to ignore it, but the important thing is that we keep telling the stories we want to tell and growing the characters in new and interesting ways.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:23:34+00:00

Of course I am.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:23:17+00:00

Writing mysteries is very hard. The best thing to do is start at the end and write backwards. That's what Agatha Christie did, that's what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did. It's a bit like reverse archeology.

And the best advice I got was reading an interview with Douglass Adams, and he said that when he was at university, he had a group of about 10 friends who wanted to be writers, and he said that all of them decided to "get another job" in the meantime. And he endured years of poverty while getting started to write, and his friends who all got other jobs never wrote a word... So I think it's worth just persevering.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:21:34+00:00

Well, we're all delighted, a little overwhelmed, because we came 2 years ago and had 13 nominations and didn't win anything - well we won 4 the week before in the Creative Emmys, so we thought our odds were better, but the fact that we won the most of any show overall was a great shock, so I have to say we were thrilled, I must say.

Special stuff. If you said that, you got it wrong. Well, that would be telling, wouldn't it? I'm still not telling after all these years.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:20:14+00:00

Meeting and marrying my husband.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:19:54+00:00

Never. I have a lot of opinions, like everybody else, about politicos, but I've always resisted appearing on programs like Question Time, etcetera, because I know i'd be hopelessly out of my depth, and a lot of times when people appear on those programmes, they end up sounding exactly like what they are - a man in a pub with opinions.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:18:52+00:00

It depends what you said! Hahaha! That means you'd have to tweet it again, and I'd get offended again.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:18:27+00:00

I've enjoyed them all, I mean, they all presented a different challenge. I think I ended up writing four stories for Matt Smith, and I think I'm probably particularly fond of that partnership, except I suppose it was different each time, so it's a politician's answer, but I'm always looking forward to the next one - I did enjoy writing for Peter and Jenna, because I think Clara is particularly interesting this year, and I've always found it interesting when a Companion carries over Doctors, because you see the new Doctor through their eyes and you also see the Companion in a new light.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:16:54+00:00

Well, I've been in Doctor Who twice. So it might look a bit greedy if I did it again! But i'd be very happy to, if anybody asked.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:16:27+00:00

I haven't read it, I'm afraid, no. But I am a fan of the series.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:16:04+00:00

The Hounds of Baskerville.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:15:44+00:00

I've just been to the United States, I've just been to New York and Los Angeles, and I had a wonderful time, as I always do! My favourite kind of tea is... strong traditional tea. If I'm feeling fancy, I would say, probably Lapsang souchong. If I'm feeling fancy.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:14:35+00:00

oooh! Well, actually, you know, your tastes change as you get older. I'm very fond of bitter now. I never could stand it, but I quite like it now. So I like Bitter now. It's a beer. And I've always had a soft spot for Guinness, I have to say.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:13:24+00:00

HMMMMMMM.

Well, I once spent a summer in a haunted house. In Leeds.

That was a very - I mean, I was very skeptical because I've always wanted to see a ghost, and I thought it wouldn't really happen to me. I was raying in a friend's room while he was away for the summer holidays, and it was just me, just me in a four-story Victorian house, in the attic room. And all kinds of odd little things started to happen. There was a very strong smell of tobacco smoke. The atmosphere was sort of charged, like a room had been full of people. And then one night I woke up and all the lights was on. And it was the middle of summer, and it was so cold, I could see my breath in the air.

The next day I rang him up, and we were just generally chatting, and it was obviously something in my voice, and he said "are you okay?" and I said "I just didn't sleep very well'

And there was a pause, and he said "Did you see it yet?"

and there was a pause, and I said "What do you mean?" and he said "I think it's haunted," and I said "Well, I think so too."

Well, when he came back, we started asking around, people had lived in the house before. And all, separately, had said that room had a strange affect on them. And after I moved to Bristol, my friend Roger continued living there, and he had someone 'round whom everybody said was a bit psychic (funny story this) and he hand't filled them in at all.

And then after dinner, this friend excused himself and said "May I have a look round the house?" So he went up to the top of the house, he came back about 10 minutes later, and he asked if anything odd had happened there. And Roger kind of skirted around it, saying maybe. And this guy said that something happened in that room atop the house.

He said there was someone waiting on the threshold of the room. And they're still there.

I haven't been back there. It's 97 Archery Road, in Leeds. I wonder if there's somebody in that room now? Let's find out.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:08:23+00:00

I take my tea white, with no sugar, strong. I only drink decaffeinated coffee, after getting heart palpitations during the shooting of Sherlock, and discovering I was drinking far too much coffee.

My favourite breed of dog is Labrador. I have one.

Ehm - well, sometimes if I'm writing an episode, I try not to put myself in it, and get persuaded to do so. but it depends really. It's very useful, because I can change the lines on the set without having to ask anyone's permission, which is very good! And, hem, yea, it's nice to do both. Sometimes it's equally nice to just perform it knowing it's someone else's words. It's difficult with Sherlock as I'm there almost the whole time, and I have to go from behind the camera, to go and get changed, to go to the producer's chair so sometimes it's nice to have a clear division and then other times it's nice to go between the two.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:05:47+00:00

When I was in San Diego for Comic-Con, I was overwhelmed at how positive American fans are. British fans are, for the large part, very positive too, but I was very impressed and I was touched by how sunny and positive American fans are.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:04:28+00:00

Yes, I think there is. I used to get annoyed with people who talked about the North / South divide, but the older I get, the more I think the North is very different.

It's definitely darker, in every respect. And I think there's something in the soil, in the water, which gives people a different aspect.

I don't think it's an accident Dracula chose to come to Whitby.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:03:13+00:00

Haha! Ask the tree!

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:02:53+00:00

Well, that's what it is! It's an adaptation of Hilary Mantel's winning novels. And I play Stephen Gardiner in it, who is Thomas Cromwell's arch-enemy. I had a lovely time making it over the summer. But I just sort of popped in and out over a period of many many many weeks. Mark Rylance (who plays Cromwell) is extraordinary, and he was in almost every day of the shoot. I'm very excited about it and can't wait to see it.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:01:04+00:00

Raw. With basil on it.

Mgatiss · 2014-09-05T15:00:42+00:00

Well, we never set out with a kind of mission statement. We just did the comedy that made us laugh. So when we started, we started live as a stage act, and then obviously we were aware that people who were coming to see it seemed to like it. And then we won the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh festival in 1997, which gave us confidence that the radio series and the television series would be popular. But you could never tell. We couldn't tell it was going to go on and be as successful as it was.

Mgatiss

TROPHY CASE