#i guess same goes for david tennant and michael sheen

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

The angel on my shoulder: Shipping real people is bad. They could find it and become very uncomfortable. It it highly disrespectful to them and their significant others.

The devil on my shoulder: John Lennon coming back from the dead to fuck Paul McCartney in the ass is the greatest contribution to humanity ever known

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Very funny Staged-like opening of BAFTAs 2024 with David and Michael! :D ❤

David: Can you hear me? Michael, how is it going.

Michael: Yeah, I don't have time for pleasantries, David. Some of us are big in America. In fact, I have a zoom with LA in ten minutes.

David: It's 04:00 a.m. in LA.

Michael: Well, that was the only time I could fit them in, so they're getting up early. Anyway, look, I just wanted to confirm, I'm going to drop the new dog off on Sunday morning. We've called him Bark Ruffalo. It's cute isn’t it?

David: That is actually quite good. But listen, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm afraid I can’t dog sit on Sunday.

Georgia: Oh, hi, Michael.

Michael: Yeah, hi, Georgia. Look, I don't want any of your excuses, David, you promised. I can't leave him with a neighbour because he peed in her kitchen.

Georgia: Right. Whereas we are desperate for him to come and pee in our kitchen.

David: I know that I did promise to dog sit on Sunday but since I promised, something else has come up and I-

Michael: Well, that sounds like a you problem.

David: Hi, Stan how are things?

Stanley Tucci: Hi, David. How are you?

David: Okay, listen, I need a favour. Michael Sheen has asked me to look after his dog on Sunday, but I agreed to host the BAFTA Film Awards on the same day. I was wondering if you could look after his dog for me?

Stanley Tucci: I would love to do that for you, David.

David: Oh, Stan, you're a lifesaver. Thank you so much.

Stanley Tucci: Is there anything else I can do for you?

David: No, looking after the dog is... I mean, that's obviously amazing.

Stanley Tucci: I could wash your car or something or the windows in your home.

David: You're not really gonna look after the dog, are you?

Stanley Tucci: And the BAFTA for Catching On Very Quickly goes to...

David: Himesh! Oh, Himesh, I think your computer is frozen. Oh, no it’s not frozen because I just saw someone.

Himesh Patel: Look, I know you're just calling because you want something from me.

David: Yeah. What are you doing on Sunday? Oh for crying out loud. Tom Hiddleston!

Tom Hiddleston: Hey, David. What's the pitch?

David: Pitch is dog sitting for Michael Sheen.

Tom Hiddleston: Wow. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. I'm guessing that we're going for, like, funny.

David: Could be funny, it’s a cute dog.

Tom Hiddleston: Yeah, I suppose the dog sitter initially could present as benign, and then he and the dog get up to all kinds of hijinx and ultimately disrupt stuffy old Michael Sheen's boring life. But for the better.

David: Listen did your agent tell you that I wanted to talk to you about a film?

Tom Hiddleston: Well yeah, obviously, unless you're actually, you know, calling me to ask me to dogsit for Michael Sheen.

David: No. Oh. Dame Judi. Long time no see.

Judi Dench: I thought you were going to be that beautiful Michael Sheen. What do you want?

David: Well, I wonder if you'd be up for a bit of dog sitting. I promised to look after Bark Ruffalo for Michael on Sunday, but I'm double booked.

Judi Dench: David. Bark Ruffalo. He pees everywhere. And anyway, I shall be watching a BAFTA Film Awards with a big glass of champagne. What's with the kilt?

David: Wait and see.

Judi Dench: Ooh.

David: Hi, David Tennant signing in. There's a courier here with something for production.

announcement: David Tennant to stage. David Tennant to stage.

David: Hi. Hello. Hi, everyone. Hi. Hi. Hi there.Sorry. I've got-Are you good with dogs? Yeah, and not on your dress. I'm sorry. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Sorry. Hello. Hello. Hi. This is fine. This is fine. This is. Michael? Michael?! What? What is this?

Michael: What are you doing there?

David: I'm hosting the show.

Michael: What?!

David: This is why you wanted me to dog sit, so you could sit there?

Michael: Yeah.

David: You going to have to take the dog.

Michael: What? What if I have to go up on the stage to be given an award? Yeah. All right. Give me.

David: Yeah. Come on. Get that one. You take that. And this weird thing.

Michael: Was this Scottish man mean to you? All right, come on to me. Oh, darling, hello, hello.

David: Never work with animals or Michael Sheen. Not a great start. Not a great start. Don't worry, though, tonight is going to go smoother than Ken's chest. For one thing, he's not a dog anyway. He is actually being played by Andy Serkis. Look at that. What a performance. Andy.

[thereallovebug]

“It’s a love story.” - Simon Evans

I’ve been putting off making my own observations about Staged3 because I’m still processing it. I will say I do agree with a lot of what IIW said although I think they overall liked it more than I did.

First I’ll say I’m very glad it’s finally over. I didn’t see a need for this series. Frankly, I don’t think there was need for Staged2, either, because lockdown was over and it looked liked an excuse to throw as many cameo appearances as possible at the audience and take the piss out of Sheen and Tennant. Fair enough. Staged1 was different and fresh and came along at just the right time. It was certainly a treat for those of us who were fans of the boys and gave us a peek (sort of) into their personal lives in a way we all could relate to during the pandemic even though most of us will never have the life of privilege and wealth they do.

Why make Staged3? In spite of the fact Covid is still with us and people are still dying from it the original conceit of Sheen and Tennant stuck idle in lockdown is long over and now it’s gotten to the point of a self-indulgent exercise. They’ve been busy either procreating or working so it’s not like they have nothing to do. I haven’t observed a real crying need for more Staged other than from the most obsessed fans so why do it? What message are they trying to send?

I did notice some things, though.

First, some background. You should be aware I’ve been a fan of both men for a long time. I first became aware of Michael in Wilde (Who is that fey young man?) and David as 10 in Doctor Who, and have watched them in other projects since as I’ve been able to. They both became two of my favorite actors so you can imagine my delight when I found out they would be working together in Good Omens. You can imagine my further delight once I actually saw them in GO and I fell in love hard for Aziraphale and Crowley as many have. And like so many have observed, there chemistry on screen and in real life is amazing and they have admitted many times in interviews becoming very close friends due to all of the time they spent on set while filming GO.

Which brings us to Staged3. This time around it’s still very meta and the conceit is that Michael is jealous any time David works without him (which is ridiculous because in real life as they work separately more often than not). The particular versions of themselves in this go-round hardly resemble the ones in the previous series of Staged. Michael is such an angry prick I actually feared for Anna and their kids while David was stuck in Japan and Georgia was just stage-managing everything since they were discussing filming Staged3 while actually filming Staged3. Are you confused yet? Then it somehow turned into a decision to do a radio version of A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve (which I’d actually be down with) and it kinda lumbered on from there with guest appearances by Ty Tennant, Lily Sheen (cuz the more nepotism the better I guess) and I can’t be bothered to go on with more, just read IIW’s synopsis above.

To me the most interesting thing about Staged in all three series is how David and Michael are presented as a couple. As in when David says to Michael, “Georgia says we act like an old married couple.” “Well, you are.” “She means you and me!” Or when the interviewer asks, “Who is the big spoon?” and both say at the same time, “Me.” When the power goes out during the actual live performance (which is a complete disaster) Michael has finally has had enough and says something like “I think we should take a break from each other.” And there are more examples of this throughout that could be listed in an article of “Tropes for Writing Rom-Coms.” I mean, I’ve haven’t seen this much coupley stuff between two men since Will and Grace went off the air! What baffles me is why? Is it a joke? Their partners are complicit in this and don’t seem to care. (In fact in real life Georgia Tennant has referred to Michael as “David’s other wife”)

“The hell with both of you on every level of your navel-gazing abhorrence!” Naw, just kidding! I love you both to the moon and back. Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’!

****************

Note added in May, 2024: Goodness, I found this somewhat unfinished review from November 2022 languishing in my drafts and decided instead of deleting it might still be interesting to someone so I decided I’d rather post it than not. My apologies for the lateness!

Hi! Have you already watched Staged 3? How it was? I don't have britbox and do not know what to expect.

Hi, Anon!

"Saved by the Bell", I would sum up. I watched S3 and I'm glad I've waited for the end to write something. Because after the first two episodes I was really discouraged. Despite lasting only 20 minutes, Ep. 1 was painful to watch for me until the end, so it was extremely tedious and boring. The same heated soup, over and over again, made with recycled content. But then, from Ep. 3, something has changed fortunately. Let’s be clear: the core of the show remains the same, MS & DT constantly screaming angry and stressed each other until the very end, but at least you can see ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’, the purpose of this season: to give a worthy conclusion to this project. And they did it with irony, intelligence, making fun of themself, joking on the absurdity of this farce, mixing different genres, Big Brother/Quantum Leap/Russian Doll and – why not? – a bit of The Exorcist, adding guest stars and expanding the landscape of the camera view. This last point was one of the more interesting to me, because we could finally see a glimpse of their real daily life (plus the whole kitchen of MS, part of his garden and car, DT’s house, etc.).

The development of the plot follows the chapters of the Christmas Carol novel, but in an original way. They show you how an imaginary S3 started (the past), the undone final product (the present) and their effort to change the coming bad reviews (the future), while they’re becoming - step by step - more and more aware that this partnership has to come to an end, like all good things.

To me the funniest moments were the involuntary ones, the dry humour of certain short answers, the ridiculousness of some situations, not the scenes forced, predictable, written to fill the time or the pages, to entertain you at all costs. By this criterion, there were some characters I appreciated more and other less.

MS & DT were (obviously) perfect, generous, selfless, crazy, messy and professional at the same time, even you could read in their eyes that they were (for real) sick and tired to play these cartoonish roles ad infinitum. Saying that they wanted to do other things was not just a line, but the truth (like some others in this show).

The rest of the cast followed their same rules, exaggerating and amplifying some traits of their characters, although with different results I must say. GT was the leader of this group, she pushed the events, she basically directed the project to the final destination, she was very present in every scene (maybe too much IMHO, but she was one of the producers after all), even if not so nice like she thought to be. A bit overexposed, like Simon, whose story was not so interesting to tell. Lucy acted well, I liked her, she was spontaneous, funny and fresh, as well as Ty (inscrutable but surgical in his humour) or Lily (at last finally!) or Nina (goofy). Different results I said, and there comes AL: suitable in the role of chauffeur or props manager, not so much as actress. I think it’s because she is like the beige colour and you cannot make it suddendly neon, without creating something artificial. The result is that I found her character prissy and demanding, fake (I hope for her it was), a pretty mannequin to fill the space in the showcase.

The other guest stars: Jim Broadbent (ruthless) or Olivia Colman (sweet fairy), always on time, even with small parts. Simply a guarantee. Neil Gaiman: ok, just to do a bit of advertising for GO2 and to complete the parade of family & close friends.

So, in the end, my suggestion is to watch it, even if you’re a fan or not, at least because in this case, you can break the spell, close this door and open another one. Knock-knock…

[good-omens-classic]

Hi Good Omens fans, ever since making this blog, and trawling through the archives for old art, I have been thinking again about trends from before the TV-show, and the way people draw Aziraphale and Crowley.  I wanted to make this post addressing it but this is not “discourse” or to start a fight, in fact I would be perfectly content if all I did was make people think critically about what I am about to say and not even interact with this post at all, but I feel like I need to say it.

Talking about any racist undertones to the way people draw our two favorite boys usually makes people dig their heels in pretty fast.  This is not a callout post for any artist in particular, this is not me trying to be overly critical of artists especially since they have more talent and skill than I do, and I’m going to address some common counterpoints that I frankly find unsatisfactory.  Let’s just take a moment to set aside our defensiveness and think objectively about these trends.  It took me a while to unlearn my dismissive attitude about these concerns so maybe I can help others get over that hurdle a little faster.  Now let’s begin.

I’ve been kicking around the Good Omens fandom since maybe 2015 and for art based in book canon, whether it was made before the TV show came out, or because the artist is consciously drawing different, original designs, I’m going to estimate that a decent 75% of all fanart looks like this

Aziraphale is white and blonde and blue-eyed while Crowley is the typical “racially ambiguous” brown skin tone it’s become so popular to draw podcast characters as nowadays.

And the question is why?  With the obvious answer being “it’s racist,” but let’s delve a little deeper than that.

A common thing I hear is that people get appearance headcanons fixed in their mind because the coverart of the book pictures the characters a certain way.  My first point is this only shifts the question to why the illustrators drew them that way, when there aren’t many physical descriptions in the book.  My second point is that while there definitely are cover arts that picture Aziraphale as cherubic, blonde, and white and Crowley as swarthy, dark-skinned, and racially ambiguous...

(side note: why is Crowley’s hand so tiny?  what the hell is going on in this cover?)

It’s much more common for the covers to simplified, stylized, and without any particular unambiguous skin tones

I don’t know about the UK but the most popular version in the United States is the dual black and white matching covers

And while you could make an argument that the shading on Crowley’s face could suggest a darker skintone, it seems obvious to me that lacking any color these are not supposed to suggest any particular race for either of these two, and the contrasting colors are a stylistic choice to emphasize how they are on opposite sides.  If anything, to me it suggests they are both white.

In short I simply do not buy the argument that people are drawing Aziraphale and Crowley this way because that’s how they were represented on the cover art of the book.  If you draw them the way they are on the cover then whatever, I don’t care, but I don’t believe that’s what’s driving this trend.

The second thing people will say is that Good Omens is a work of satire, and it’s based in Christian mythology which has this trend of depicting angels as white, and it is embodying the trope of a “white, cherubic angel” paired with a dark-skinned demon for the explicit purpose of subverting the trope of “white angel is good, dark demon is bad” since Aziraphale is not an unambiguous hero and Crowley is not a villain.  “It’s not actually like that because Crowley isn’t a bad demon, and Aziraphale isn’t actually a perfect angel” is the argument.  This has a certain logic to it and allows some nuance to the topic, but to this I say:

Uncritically reproducing a trope, even in the context of a satire novel, is not enough to subvert it.  Good Omens is not criticising the racist history of the church, and while the book does have some pointed jabs at white British culture (such as Madam Tracy conning gullible Brits with an unbelievably ignorant stereotype of a Native American) it is not being critical of the conception of angels as white and blonde or the literal demonization of non-white people.  That’s just not what the book is about.  So making the angel white and the demon dark-skinned, playing directly into harmful tropes and stereotypes, is not somehow subversive or counter-cultural when doing so doesn’t say anything about anything.

Please consider fully the ramifications of the conception of white and blonde people as innocent and cherubic and dark-skinned people as infernal and mischievous, especially in modern contexts...

Black people are more likely to be viewed as violent, angry, and dangerous.  Priming with a dark-skinned face makes people more likely to mistake a tool for a gun.  Black people are viewed as experiencing pain less intensely by medical professionals.  Black men are viewed as physically larger and more imposing than they actually are.  The subconscious racial bias favoring light skin is so ingrained it’s measurable by objective scientific studies, on top of the anecdotal evidence of things like news stories choosing flattering, “cherubic” pictures of white and blond criminals while using unflattering mugshots for non-white offenders.

This is why I say that if you’re going to invoke the “whites are angelic” trope, you better have a damn good subversion of it to justify it, because this idea causes real harm to real people in the real world.  And Aziraphale being a bit of a bastard despite being an angel, I just don’t see that as sufficient.  I am especially cautious of when it’s my fellow white fans that make this argument, not because I believe they do this out of any sort of malice or hatred of people with dark skin, but because I know first-hand it stems from a dismissiveness rooted in not wanting to think about it for too long because it makes us uncomfortable.  Non-white people do not have the luxury of not thinking about it, because it’s part of their life.

Now the strongest textual evidence people use, in the absence of much real descriptor, is this:

"Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Two of these were wrong; Heaven is not in England, whatever certain poets may have thought, and angels are sexless unless they really want to make an effort" 

This piece of art has circulated in the fandom for so long I don’t know the original artist and it’s been used for everything from fancovers to perfume.  This is where I found it and it’s one of the first things that come up when you google this quote about Aziraphale.  

Doesn’t it just feel like this is the man that’s describing, some blonde effeminate gay man?  Well guess what, there’s the “blonde as innocence” trope rearing its ugly head again, because the stereotype of gay men and effeminacy as being a white and blonde thing is--ding ding ding you guessed it--racism.  And why would intelligent suggest a white and blonde person, except if the stereotype of a dark-skinned person is less intelligent?

Now the point of “people assume Aziraphale is British” is another sticking point people will often use, claiming that the stereotype of a British person is white and blonde.  I guess this has some merit, since the British empire was one of the biggest forces behind white colonial expansion, and it seems disingenuous to assign “British” as “nonwhite” as soon as we’re being satirical, in the same way I found it distasteful that the TV show made God female when so many of the criticisms of the church are about its misogyny and lose their teeth as soon as God is no longer male.

However consider that 1.4 million Indian people live in the UK.  I heard a man say aloud once that the concept of a black person having a British accent was a little funny, as though Doctor Who doesn’t exist and have black people on it.  And I’m not overly familiar with the social landscape of the UK, but I understand they’re experiencing a xenophobia boom and non-white Brits aren’t considered “really British.”  The stereotype of non-white people not being British only exists because of reinforcement in media.  If you really want to be subversive, drawing Aziraphale as Indian goes way further than drawing him as white IMO.

Now let’s talk about Crowley.  He is almost always drawn with a darker skin tone than Aziraphale, even when they are both white, and while I’ve outlined above how this is problematic on terms of linking light skin with innocence, I think it does have an extra layer.  I think it also has to do with the exotification and fetishization of brown skin and non-white people.

This artist’s tumblr is gone now but their art is still on dA and while it’s definitely beautiful and well-done, I think this is a very good example of what I’m talking about.

Crowley and Aziraphale necessarily contrast each other, so describing Aziraphale as “British” might suggest that Crowley is “foreign-looking.”  I also know *ahem* that the fandom generally thirsts over Crowley to hell and back, so making him a swarthy, tall dark and handsome is not necessarily surprising.

An interesting thing happened when the TV show came out, and everyone started drawing Michael Sheen!Aziraphale and David Tennant!Crowley more and more often:  It’s not ubiquitous, but it does happen that sometimes artists will draw David Tennant’s skin darker than it actually is.  The subconscious urge to see Crowley with dark skin is for some reason that strong for many people.  And I really encourage people doing this to think about why.  Not naming any names but I’ve working with fanartists before for collabs who I had to ask to lighten “bad guy” demon’s skin tones because it looked like they were making the skin darker on purpose to make them look scarier.  This person is a perfectly pleasant person who tries not to be racist!  And we both still fell into it accidentally, and it took me a while to notice and point it out, because the ingrained stigmatization of darker skin is pervasive yet often goes unnoticed.

What is the solution?  I don’t know, and as a white person I’m not really qualified to make that call.  Do we draw them both with the exact same skin tone?  Is it better to make them both white?  Should we make both of them non-white?  Should we only make Aziraphale non-white?  I am consciously aware of the fact that the Good Omens fandom is mostly white people, so most of the art we make is being both made by and consumed by white people, so I don’t feel comfortable saying “draw these characters of color specifically” because that can also veer into fetishization territory very quickly.  This is not specific to good omens but I think we should pay attention to what fans of color say in all fandom spaces and weigh our choices even if they seem insignificant.  And it’s important to realize that fans of color will not be a monolith in their opinion either, and it’s our responsibility to recognize that everyone can be affected by racism and social issues differently, the same way all women are affected by misogyny differently so just because one woman says such as such is misogynistic and another says it’s not.  I’m sure there are non-white fans who think it’s perfectly fine to draw Aziraphale as white and Crowley as ambiguously non-white.  I’m not saying they’re wrong.  And I’m not saying you can’t reblog this kind of art, or that people who make or made it should feel bad about themselves.  But so often this sort of thing goes unaddressed just because people don’t like thinking about it, and well, avoiding hard questions never really goes well I think.

[taiteilija]

Michael Sheen Massive Praise Post

I don’t think I have ever actually expressed how much I do appreciate this guy so now it’s high time to do so!

We all agree that Sheen was great as Aziraphale, but it’s still mainly David Tennant to have his own fanvids with Crowley alone and not Michael (nearly no Aziraphale alone fanvids there!). Much as I love their characters as a couple, I’d love to have some sort of POV of each of them as well, but all I have is a lot of Crowley (at least when it comes to fanvids).

Is Aziraphale less interesting because he’s an angel? Well, I think fanbase generally prefers Crowley. Like, we love both, they’re inseparable and there’s usually loads of both of them as one, but if you have to choose just one… Well, I think, it’d be Crowley, not Aziraphale to be chosen by most of fans. Aziraphale is not the dramatic good demon. He’s a bastard who thinks he knows best what’s Right and what’s Wrong or rather he pretends to know. Such a hypocrite! Sure, he’s changing slowly, his certainty is really just a fasade, he’s good at heart and so on, but Crowley is the one we would agree with and sympathize with in the first place. Most of us, at least.

Considering it all, Michael Sheen deserves even more credit for his portrayal of Aziraphale because he managed to make this character as interesting, as lovable as Crowley in fandom’s eyes. I think Aziraphale as a role is way harder to portray than Crowley. And he succeed anyway! It’s pretty obvious here, on Tumblr that Sheen as Aziraphale stole fanbase’s heart. My thoughts are based solely on observation of Good Omens fans here. Of course, you can disagree. I may be wrong. Only idiots think they’re totally right. ;)

I’m so happy to see that on Tumblr Michael Sheen is appreciated properly by the fanbase of GO, but anywhere else, I guess, it's  DT mainly. Don’t get me wrong, I love DT, he’s my favourite actor, actually, but it’s just so sad that Michael Sheen, fantastic, outstanding actor, the one who’s so great when it comes to interacting with fans, so supportive of fan activities and stuff, has no great fanbase on his own. Like popculture, various, huge fanbase, focused on him only, not just on this one single role in Good Omens.

I blame it on the fact that Michael was not  in many popculture, high quality productions and there’s a lot of him being just supporting character, not the main one. DT has Doctor Who, Jessica Jones, Good Omens, Broadchurch… Michael Sheen, on the other hand, has… Twilight. I don’t wish to insult Twilight fans, but still we do need more of Michael Sheen in things like Good Omens. Otherwise, no huge, proper Michael Sheen popculture fanbase can be formed.

I myself saw him in so many productions and just didn’t remember him in any of them. But then Good Omens was announced and I started doing some research on him and I found out I knew him already! I just… didn’t remember him! Mostly because those productions he was in were not my jam or he was just supporting character in them. It’s a real shame!

But it could be so much better, even without new, main roles in things similar to, let’s say, Doctor Who.

I mean, for example, we have Bright Young Things. Great idea to make a movie, great cast, mostly, but result’s a bit dull. How much better that movie could be if Miles (Michael Sheen) was its main character! With that queer, dramatic, camp acting I love so much? The movie could be awesome! Not to say… GAY RIGHTS! It’d be fantastic production, a bit absurd, a bit sad about queer people in 20s with queer main character struggling with his identity!

Same goes to Passengers. Just a normal movie, nothing special (it is so for me, you can disagree), but imagine the very same movie from the perspective of Arthur (Michael Sheen), an android, who observes the couple, learns watching them. If we could also have some witty narration to it (much like God in Good Omens) it’d be great, wouldn’t it? Instead of that boring couple on a spaceship plot, we could have android observing the human couple, changing thanks to them, while having all sorts of identity issues. 

But we don’t have it, unfortunately.

My point in this chaotic praise post is that Michael Sheen is intriguing actor and he needs more recognition. And that’s my point!

Oh, but what do I love about his acting so much? His acting style is so very emotional, a bit dramatic, camp even (I do love camp aesthetics, by the way), queer-like. He has very expressive eyes and elegant smiles, those tiny twitches and graceful or, on the contrary, nervous gestures. It all makes you think, while watching him, that there���s some buzzing energy inside him, some constantly changing flow of thoughts and emotions. He reflects them so well, even those slight shifts, shadows of thoughts on his features. You can actually read the character he’s portraying without him even speaking. All it takes to understand the character here is just watching his body language! Oh, and his voice! Such a nice voice to hear; soothing, low, but not too low and I love his ability to make it slightly higher than it is or lower and a little bit harsh. His manner of speaking is also pretty elegant, clear and easy to understand for me as a non-native speaker. It probably means that his way of spelling words is super correct or something.

He’s certainly too good to be supporting character or acting in low quality stuff. There’s not enough of him being the main character and in good stuff.

Yes, that’s my point! :)

[majortomyourcurcuitsdead]

“Well look at him, that’s literally you in 40 years!”

I’ve decided to make a whole separate post after seeing this by @hedonistbyheart

Because it resonated so much with me, and I figured it deserves a separate post.

And I literally have created yet another tumblr account (because I thought that there won’t be any stories that would prompt me to come back to this lair of fandoms, but oh well) for the purpose to write this here; so bear with me.

I got to know about Good Omens just last week. It was after my dad said that there’s some new series where “one character really reminds me of you”.

So we started watching it. And with each passing minute of the first episode it was becoming more and more obvious that my dad was right about that one character; the latter did remind me and my dad of myself so much, up to the point of it all being plainly ridiculous; dad kept saying “Well look at him, that’s literally you in 40 years!”, and I couldn’t help but agree, laugh and feel so joyful about it. Why so?

Because when you get to know a character who reminds you in some way, it makes you feel appreciate yourself more. Why do I happen to relate to Crowley?

The thing is, I personally am quite an odd person. One of the major themes of Good Omens was a story of odd ones. Crowley and Aziraphale are odd ones. Odd.

And I’m quite an odd one too. In many ways. One of them is that I’ve never been a “girly girl” in a stereotypical way (not that it’s a bad thing of course), but rather an androgynous expression is a natural part of what I am. There were occasions when strangers were not even sure whether I’m a guy or a girl lol (love it because confusing people is fun). Heck I’ve always felt like some sexless entity who just happened to be given a body with XX chromosomes.

The way I simply, well, am, is this weird, subtle mix of masculine and feminine (I guess “feminine masculinity” would describe my expression, if it can be called this way, pretty well. Or is it “masculine femininity??”). And I’ve started to truly appreciate it only recently. And probably one of those things that Crowley and I have in common, and what people notice, is this way of simply being, and mannerisms. (Specifically that implicitly expressed femininity that was mentioned in the post I’m referencing here; quite an odd one, but a part of, I guess, an intricate gender expression).

The reason why I felt so compelled to write this all at 01:50 AM where I am now (and then edit it couple of days later) is a fact that I truly, truly appreciate the fact that there’s a character like Crowley in whom me and others can recognize myself. And I really hope my words can do justice in expressing how great it is when you see those same patterns of expression as you do in various characters, and how much it matters.

An enormous thanks to @neil-gaiman and Terry Pratchett; to David Tennant, who portrayed Crowley in a magnificent way (the same goes to Michael Sheen and all the other actors), and to the whole crew for a beautiful work that is Good Omens.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Was doing Staged a big decision, because it’s so personal and set in your homes? Georgia Tennant: We’d always been a very private couple. Staged was everything we’d never normally say yes to. Suddenly, our entire house is on TV and so is a version of the relationship we’d always kept private. But that’s the way to do it, I guess. Go to the other extreme. Just rip off the Band-Aid.

Anna Lundberg: Michael decided pretty quickly that we weren’t going to move around the house at all. All you see is the fireplace in our kitchen.

GT: We have five children, so it was just about which room was available.

AL: But it’s not the real us. It’s not a documentary.

GT: Although some people think it is.

Which fictional parts of the show do people mistake for reality? GT: People think I’m really a novelist because “Georgia” writes a novel in Staged. They’ve asked where they can buy my book. I should probably just write one now because I’ve done the marketing already.

AL: People worry about our elderly neighbour, who gets hospitalised in the show. She doesn’t actually exist in real life but people have approached Michael in Tesco’s, asking if she’s OK.

Michael and David squabble about who’s billed first in Staged. Does that reflect real life? AL: With Good Omens, Michael’s name was first for the US market and David’s was first for the British market. So those scenes riffed on that.

Should we call you Georgia and Anna, or Anna and Georgia? GT: Either. We’re super-laidback about these things.

AL: Unlike certain people.

How well did you know each other before Staged? GT: We barely knew each other. We’ve now forged a friendship by working on the show together.

AL: We’d met once, for about 20 minutes. We were both pregnant at the time – we had babies a month apart – so that was pretty much all we talked about.

Did you tidy up before filming? AL: We just had to keep one corner relatively tidy.

GT: I’m quite a tidy person, but I didn’t want to be one of those annoying Instagram people with perfect lives. So strangely, I had to add a bit of mess… dot a few toys around in the background. I didn’t want to be one of those insufferable people – even though, inherently, I am one of those people.

Was there much photobombing by children or pets? AL: In the first series, Lyra was still at an age where we could put her in a baby bouncer. Now that’s not working at all. She’s just everywhere. Me and Michael don’t have many scenes together in series two, because one of us is usually Lyra-wrangling.

GT: Our children aren’t remotely interested. They’re so unimpressed by us. There’s one scene where Doris, our five-year-old, comes in to fetch her iPad. She doesn’t even bother to glance at what we’re doing.

How was lockdown for you both? AL: I feel bad saying it, but it was actually good for us. We were lucky enough to be in a big house with a garden. For the first time since we met, we were in one place. We could just focus on Lyra . To see her grow over six months was incredible. She helped us keep a steady routine, too.

GT: Ours was similar. We never spend huge chunks of time together, so it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At least until David’s career goes to shit and he’s just sat at home. The flipside was the bleakness. Being in London, there were harrowing days when everything was silent but you’d just hear sirens going past, as a reminder that something awful was going on. So I veered between “This is wonderful” and “This is the worst thing that ever happened.”

And then there was home schooling… GT: Which was genuinely the worst thing that ever happened.

You’ve spent a lot of time on video calls, clearly. What are your top Zooming tips? GT: Raise your camera to eye level by balancing your laptop on a stack of books. And invest in a ring light.

AL: That’s why you look so much better. We just have our sad kitchen light overhead, which makes us look like one massive shiny forehead.

GT: Also, always have a good mug on the go [raises her cuppa to the camera and it’s a Michael Sheen mug]. Someone pranked David on the job he’s shooting at the moment by putting a Michael Sheen mug in his trailer. He brought it home and now I use it every morning. I’m magically drawn to drinking out of Michael.

There’s a running gag in series one about the copious empties in Michael’s recycling. Did you lean into lockdown boozing in real life? AL: Not really. We eased off when I was pregnant and after Lyra was born. We’d just have a glass of wine with dinner.

GT: Yes, definitely. I often reach for a glass of red in the show, which was basically just an excuse to continue drinking while we were filming: “I think my character would have wine and cake in this scene.” The time we started drinking would creep slightly earlier. “We’ve finished home schooling, it’s only 4pm, but hey…” We’ve scaled it back to just weekends now.

How did you go about creating your characters with the writer Simon Evans? AL: He based the dynamic between David and Michael on a podcast they did together. Our characters evolved as we went along.

GT: I was really kind and understanding in the first draft. I was like “I don’t want to play this, it’s no fun.” From the first few tweaks I made, Simon caught onto the vibe, took that and ran with it.

Did you struggle to keep a straight face at times? AL: Yes, especially the scenes with all four of us, when David and Michael start improvising.

GT: I was just drunk, so I have no recollection.

AL: Scenes with all four of us were normally filmed in the evening, because that’s when we could be child-free. Usually there was alcohol involved, which is a lot more fun.

GT: There’s a long scene in series two where we’re having a drink. During each take, we had to finish the glass. By the end, we were all properly gone. I was rewatching it yesterday and I was so pissed.

What else can you tell us about series two? GT: Everyone’s in limbo. Just as we think things are getting back to normal, we have to take three steps back again. Everyone’s dealing with that differently, shall we say.

AL: In series one, we were all in the same situation. By series two, we’re at different stages and in different emotional places.

GT: Hollywood comes calling, but things are never as simple as they seem.

There were some surprise big-name cameos in series one, with Samuel L Jackson and Dame Judi Dench suddenly Zooming in. Who can we expect this time around? AL: We can’t name names, but they’re very exciting.

GT: Because series one did so well, and there’s such goodwill towards the show, we’ve managed to get some extraordinary people involved. This show came from playing around just to pass the time in lockdown. It felt like a GCSE end-of-term project. So suddenly, when someone says: “Samuel L Jackson’s in”, it’s like: “What the fuck’s just happened?”

AL: It took things to the next level, which was a bit scary.

GT: It suddenly felt like: “Some people might actually watch this.”

How are David and Michael’s hair and beard situations this time? AL: We were in a toyshop the other day and Lyra walked up to these Harry Potter figurines, pointed at Hagrid and said: “Daddy!” So that explains where we’re at. After eight months of lockdown, it was quite full-on.

GT: David had a bob at one point. Turns out he’s got annoyingly excellent hair. Quite jealous. He’s also grown a slightly unpleasant moustache.

Is David still wearing his stinky hoodie? GT: I bought him that as a gift. It’s actually Paul Smith loungewear. In lockdown, he was living in it. It’s pretty classy, but he does manage to make it look quite shit.

---

Omg the mug’s origins :D

‘GT: Also, always have a good mug on the go [raises her cuppa to the camera and it’s a Michael Sheen mug]. Someone pranked David on the job he’s shooting at the moment by putting a Michael Sheen mug in his trailer. He brought it home and now I use it every morning. I’m magically drawn to drinking out of Michael. ‘

[invisibleicewands]

Staged's Anna Lundberg and Georgia Tennant: 'Scenes with all four of us usually involved alcohol'

Not many primetime TV hits are filmed by the show’s stars inside their own homes. However, 2020 wasn’t your average year. During the pandemic, productions were shut down and workarounds had to be found – otherwise the terrestrial schedules would have begun to look worryingly empty. Staged was the surprise comedy hit of the summer.

This playfully meta short-form sitcom, airing in snack-sized 15-minute episodes, found A-list actors Michael Sheen and David Tennant playing an exaggerated version of themselves, bickering and bantering as they tried to perfect a performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author over Zoom.

Having bonded while co-starring in Good Omens, Amazon’s TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel, Sheen, 51, and Tennant, 49, became best buddies in real life. In Staged, though, they’re comedically reframed as frenemies – warm, matey and collaborative, but with a cut-throat competitiveness lurking just below the surface. As they grew ever more hirsute and slobbish in lockdown, their virtual relationship became increasingly fraught.

It was soapily addictive and hilariously thespy, while giving a voyeuristic glimpse of their interior decor and domestic lives – with all the action viewed through their webcams.

Yet it was the supporting cast who lifted Staged to greatness,Their director Simon Evans, forced to dance around the pair’s fragile egos and piggy-in-the-middle of their feuds. Steely producer Jo, played by Nina Sosanya, forever breaking off from calls to bellow at her poor, put-upon PA. And especially the leading men’s long-suffering partners, both actors in real life, Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg.

Georgia Tennant comes from showbiz stock, as the child of Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson. At 36 she is an experienced actor and producer, who made her TV debut in Peak Practice aged 15. She met David on Doctor Who 2008, when she played the Timelord’s cloned daughter Jenny. Meanwhile, the Swedish Lundberg, 26, is at the start of her career. She left drama school in New York two years ago and Staged is her first big on-screen role.

Married for nine years, the Tennants have five children and live in west London. The Lundberg-Sheens have been together two years, have a baby daughter, Lyra, and live outside Port Talbot in south Wales. On screen and in real life, the women have become firm friends and frequent scene-stealers.

Staged proved so successful that it’s now back for a second series. We set up a video call with Tennant and Lundberg to discuss lockdown life, wine consumption, home schooling (those two may be related) and the blurry line between fact and fiction…

Was doing Staged a big decision, because it’s so personal and set in your homes? Georgia Tennant: We’d always been a very private couple. Staged was everything we’d never normally say yes to. Suddenly, our entire house is on TV and so is a version of the relationship we’d always kept private. But that’s the way to do it, I guess. Go to the other extreme. Just rip off the Band-Aid.

Anna Lundberg: Michael decided pretty quickly that we weren’t going to move around the house at all. All you see is the fireplace in our kitchen.

GT: We have five children, so it was just about which room was available.

AL: But it’s not the real us. It’s not a documentary.

GT: Although some people think it is.

Which fictional parts of the show do people mistake for reality? GT: People think I’m really a novelist because “Georgia” writes a novel in Staged. They’ve asked where they can buy my book. I should probably just write one now because I’ve done the marketing already.

AL: People worry about our elderly neighbour, who gets hospitalised in the show. She doesn’t actually exist in real life but people have approached Michael in Tesco’s, asking if she’s OK.

Michael and David squabble about who’s billed first in Staged. Does that reflect real life? AL: With Good Omens, Michael’s name was first for the US market and David’s was first for the British market. So those scenes riffed on that.

Should we call you Georgia and Anna, or Anna and Georgia? GT: Either. We’re super-laidback about these things.

AL: Unlike certain people.

How well did you know each other before Staged? GT: We barely knew each other. We’ve now forged a friendship by working on the show together.

AL: We’d met once, for about 20 minutes. We were both pregnant at the time – we had babies a month apart – so that was pretty much all we talked about.

Did you tidy up before filming? AL: We just had to keep one corner relatively tidy.

GT: I’m quite a tidy person, but I didn’t want to be one of those annoying Instagram people with perfect lives. So strangely, I had to add a bit of mess… dot a few toys around in the background. I didn’t want to be one of those insufferable people – even though, inherently, I am one of those people.

Was there much photobombing by children or pets? AL: In the first series, Lyra was still at an age where we could put her in a baby bouncer. Now that’s not working at all. She’s just everywhere. Me and Michael don’t have many scenes together in series two, because one of us is usually Lyra-wrangling.

GT: Our children aren’t remotely interested. They’re so unimpressed by us. There’s one scene where Doris, our five-year-old, comes in to fetch her iPad. She doesn’t even bother to glance at what we’re doing.

How was lockdown for you both? AL: I feel bad saying it, but it was actually good for us. We were lucky enough to be in a big house with a garden. For the first time since we met, we were in one place. We could just focus on Lyra . To see her grow over six months was incredible. She helped us keep a steady routine, too.

GT: Ours was similar. We never spend huge chunks of time together, so it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At least until David’s career goes to shit and he’s just sat at home. The flipside was the bleakness. Being in London, there were harrowing days when everything was silent but you’d just hear sirens going past, as a reminder that something awful was going on. So I veered between “This is wonderful” and “This is the worst thing that ever happened.”

And then there was home schooling… GT: Which was genuinely the worst thing that ever happened.

You’ve spent a lot of time on video calls, clearly. What are your top Zooming tips? GT: Raise your camera to eye level by balancing your laptop on a stack of books. And invest in a ring light.

AL: That’s why you look so much better. We just have our sad kitchen light overhead, which makes us look like one massive shiny forehead.

GT: Also, always have a good mug on the go [raises her cuppa to the camera and it’s a Michael Sheen mug]. Someone pranked David on the job he’s shooting at the moment by putting a Michael Sheen mug in his trailer. He brought it home and now I use it every morning. I’m magically drawn to drinking out of Michael.

There’s a running gag in series one about the copious empties in Michael’s recycling. Did you lean into lockdown boozing in real life? AL: Not really. We eased off when I was pregnant and after Lyra was born. We’d just have a glass of wine with dinner.

GT: Yes, definitely. I often reach for a glass of red in the show, which was basically just an excuse to continue drinking while we were filming: “I think my character would have wine and cake in this scene.” The time we started drinking would creep slightly earlier. “We’ve finished home schooling, it’s only 4pm, but hey…” We’ve scaled it back to just weekends now.

How did you go about creating your characters with the writer Simon Evans? AL: He based the dynamic between David and Michael on a podcast they did together. Our characters evolved as we went along.

GT: I was really kind and understanding in the first draft. I was like “I don’t want to play this, it’s no fun.” From the first few tweaks I made, Simon caught onto the vibe, took that and ran with it.

Did you struggle to keep a straight face at times? AL: Yes, especially the scenes with all four of us, when David and Michael start improvising.

GT: I was just drunk, so I have no recollection.

AL: Scenes with all four of us were normally filmed in the evening, because that’s when we could be child-free. Usually there was alcohol involved, which is a lot more fun.

GT: There’s a long scene in series two where we’re having a drink. During each take, we had to finish the glass. By the end, we were all properly gone. I was rewatching it yesterday and I was so pissed.

What else can you tell us about series two? GT: Everyone’s in limbo. Just as we think things are getting back to normal, we have to take three steps back again. Everyone’s dealing with that differently, shall we say.

AL: In series one, we were all in the same situation. By series two, we’re at different stages and in different emotional places.

GT: Hollywood comes calling, but things are never as simple as they seem.

There were some surprise big-name cameos in series one, with Samuel L Jackson and Dame Judi Dench suddenly Zooming in. Who can we expect this time around? AL: We can’t name names, but they’re very exciting.

GT: Because series one did so well, and there’s such goodwill towards the show, we’ve managed to get some extraordinary people involved. This show came from playing around just to pass the time in lockdown. It felt like a GCSE end-of-term project. So suddenly, when someone says: “Samuel L Jackson’s in”, it’s like: “What the fuck’s just happened?”

AL: It took things to the next level, which was a bit scary.

GT: It suddenly felt like: “Some people might actually watch this.”

How are David and Michael’s hair and beard situations this time? AL: We were in a toyshop the other day and Lyra walked up to these Harry Potter figurines, pointed at Hagrid and said: “Daddy!” So that explains where we’re at. After eight months of lockdown, it was quite full-on.

GT: David had a bob at one point. Turns out he’s got annoyingly excellent hair. Quite jealous. He’s also grown a slightly unpleasant moustache.

Is David still wearing his stinky hoodie? GT: I bought him that as a gift. It’s actually Paul Smith loungewear. In lockdown, he was living in it. It’s pretty classy, but he does manage to make it look quite shit.