{"id":27119,"date":"2022-12-13T18:00:28","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T17:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1754416"},"modified":"2022-12-13T23:29:08","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T22:29:08","slug":"litvinenko-director-nailing-david-tennants-russian-accent-was-tricky","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/litvinenko-director-nailing-david-tennants-russian-accent-was-tricky\/","title":{"rendered":"Litvinenko director: Nailing David Tennant\u2019s Russian accent was \u201ctricky\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By James Hibbs\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 13 December 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Fresh from appearing in his first Doctor Who<\/a> scene as the Fourteenth Doctor<\/a> earlier this year, and from appearing in Staged<\/a> season 3 mere weeks ago, David Tennant will next be seen in ITVX drama Litvinenko<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the drama, Tennant will play the title role of Alexander Litvinenko (also known as Sasha), a former Russian spy who was poisoned in 2006.<\/p>\n

As heard in the show\u2019s first trailer<\/a>, Tennant will be using a Russian accent for the series, and when speaking exclusively with RadioTimes.com<\/a>, the show\u2019s director Jim Field Smith revealed it was a tricky aspect of the character for Tennant to nail down.<\/p>\n

Smith said: \u201cDavid does a lot of prep, he comes to set fully prepped. And he was very keen to nail down the particulars of the character before we got anywhere close to shooting it. It wasn\u2019t something where we were going to kind of explore it in the moment that you might do in a fictional piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
David Tennant as Alexander Litvinenko and Margarita Levieva as his wife Marina in Litvinenko.<\/span><\/figcaption> ITV Studios for ITVX<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Smith continued: \u201cThe tricky thing was there are very, very, very few recordings of Sasha actually speaking English. So we had to kind of extrapolate what he sounded like speaking English through speaking to Marina and through speaking to the detectives that interviewed him at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it\u2019s not just about how Sasha sounded, it\u2019s how he sounded in the condition that he was in. Although he spoke surprisingly good English, he generally didn\u2019t speak English that much and most of the recordings available of him he\u2019s speaking Russian, which obviously wasn\u2019t that helpful.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the most extraordinary thing is that Sasha conducted most of his interviews with the detectives in English, it was only when his health really started to fail or he couldn\u2019t find the right word that he would converse in Russian through an interpreter, but most of his interviews were in English.\u201d<\/p>

Litvinenko also stars Margarita Levieva, Mark Bonnar and Neil Maskell, with Levieva recently telling RadioTimes.com<\/strong> that Tennant is \u201cremarkable\u201d<\/a> in the series.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cJust as an actor, he\u2019s such a stunning artist. And we didn\u2019t meet until on the day when we were shooting the hospital scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd one of the gifts that Jim Field Smith gave us, the director, he said, \u2018I just want you to come in as these people and I\u2019m going to step away and just give you the space to really embody them and to live out the story.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Litvinenko arrives on ITVX as a full boxset on Thursday 15th December.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For more news, interviews and features, visit our\u00a0Drama<\/a>\u00a0hub, or find something to watch now with our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale\u00a0<\/strong>now \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the\u00a0Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n

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