His story dominated headlines, with one particular photo travelling around the world picturing a deteriorating Litvinenko<\/a> in his deathbed as he received treatment in the UK.<\/p>\n That served as a starting point when it came to transforming Tennant into the former Russian security officer, with the actor telling press that it was hugely important for the production to get the details of the recreation exactly right.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was quite a technical process, in a way, because it was about lots of people,\u201d he began. \u201cThe art department, the make-up department, the costume department, the lighting department, all trying to get their side of this image correct and me trying to, quite technically, recreate that in the first instance.<\/p>\n \u201cThat involved a lot of very skilled people,\u201d Tennant continued. \u201cThe make up and the prosthetics and the costume team staring at photographs to figure out, \u2018What is that hospital gown and where is it arranged?\u2019 If you can get that image right, you allow the audience into the detail of the story, I hope.\u201d<\/p>\n The actor went on to say that the entire transformation took \u201cseveral hours\u201d and had \u201ca number of stages\u201d, but he feels that their efforts resulted in a resounding success.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we got that image and I saw it on a laptop screen, for a second you couldn\u2019t quite tell if you were looking at the original or what we had just done,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the moment you thought, \u2018This feels like an effort worth making. If we can get this right and remind people of that image from 2006, then that will, hopefully, give us a great starting point to make this story as impactful as it needs to be.\u2019\u201d<\/p> On the original image, Tennant spoke about how strongly it still resonates in people\u2019s minds almost two decades since the horrifying incident unfolded.<\/p>\n \u201cThe veracity of that is very important. That image of him. When people hear his name, that\u2019s the image that comes into most of our minds. Of that wasting body in a hospital bed. We had to get that right.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether other characters look like their real life versions doesn\u2019t really influence the telling of the story. But that image of Alexander Litvinenko that bounced around the world, that attracted the world\u2019s attention, is so vivid and is iconic \u2013 if that is an appropriate term to use for something that is about a real human tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n Litvinenko arrives on\u00a0ITVX<\/a>\u00a0as a full boxset on Thursday 15th December.\u00a0Check out more of our Drama<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> and Streaming Guide<\/a> to find out what\u2019s on tonight.<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now \u2013\u00a0<\/b>subscribe now<\/a>. For more\u00a0from<\/span>\u00a0the biggest stars in TV, listen to the<\/span>\u00a0Radio Times\u00a0View<\/span>\u00a0From<\/span>\u00a0My<\/span>\u00a0Sofa<\/span>\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/span><\/b><\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n By David Craig Published: Monday, 05 December 2022 at 12:00 am David Tennant has opened up about the physical transformation he underwent in order to play Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian defector who was fatally poisoned in 2006. His story dominated headlines, with one particular photo travelling around the world picturing a deteriorating Litvinenko in his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":26630,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/12\/david-tennant-explains-how-he-transformed-into-litvinenko-for-drama.jpg",1713,1123,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/12\/david-tennant-explains-how-he-transformed-into-litvinenko-for-drama-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/12\/david-tennant-explains-how-he-transformed-into-litvinenko-for-drama-300x197.jpg",300,197,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/12\/david-tennant-explains-how-he-transformed-into-litvinenko-for-drama-768x503.jpg",768,503,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/12\/david-tennant-explains-how-he-transformed-into-litvinenko-for-drama-1024x671.jpg",800,524,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/12\/david-tennant-explains-how-he-transformed-into-litvinenko-for-drama-1536x1007.jpg",1536,1007,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/12\/david-tennant-explains-how-he-transformed-into-litvinenko-for-drama.jpg",1713,1123,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By David Craig Published: Monday, 05 December 2022 at 12:00 am David Tennant has opened up about the physical transformation he underwent in order to play Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian defector who was fatally poisoned in 2006. His story dominated headlines, with one particular photo travelling around the world picturing a deteriorating Litvinenko in his…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/26629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/12\/david-tennant-litvinenko-2-b98e7ae.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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