Set in Elizabethan England, the TNT drama series Will tells the wild tale of a promising young playwright named William Shakespeare (Laurie Davidson), with a bold, contemporary style that gives it a very punk-rock feel. The theater scene in 16th century London is part of a seductive, violent world surrounded by riotous audiences and religious fanatics, all of which threaten to destroy even the most talented wordsmith, especially when you have enough secrets that could end you before ever achieving your greatest success. From showrunner Craig Pearce (Romeo + Juliet), the series also stars Olivia DeJonge, Colm Meaney, Ewen Bremner, Jamie Campbell Bower, Mattias Inwood, William Houston, Lukas Rolfe, Max Bennett and Jasmin Savoy Brown.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor Jamie Campbell Bower talked about the appeal of playing poet and chief Shakespeare rival Christopher Marlowe, being attracted to the slightly darker side of life, delving into the dynamic between the two men, why they were the rock stars of their time, how intrigued he is to find out where things could go in possible future seasons, his own past history with performing the work of William Shakespeare, and juggling his acting career with his music and performing live.

Collider:  When the possibility of playing Christopher Marlowe in a show about William Shakespeare, at this point in his life, came your way, did you find the idea exciting and intriguing, or were you hesitant, at all? 

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Image via TNT

JAMIE CAMPBELL BOWER:  I found the idea, on paper, very interesting. I knew of Marlowe, growing up in England, as part of our rich history. I knew a little of Marlowe, but I’ll confess that I didn’t know as much as I do now, that’s for sure. I didn’t know the depths of how far he went, or possibly went, in his life. So, I got sent the script and we got talking about it, and then I went to go meet with Shekhar [Kapur]. The more I found out, the more I thought, “This is perfect!” It was a real opportunity for me to do something really fun, have a great time, and get to do what I love, which is more on the slightly darker side of life.

Did they ever ask you to consider playing William Shakespeare?

BOWER:  No, they didn’t. Shakespeare needed to be Laurie [Davidson]. He is Will, from beginning to end, in terms of who he is and how he plays him. So, Shakespeare was never a role that I was offered. It was always Marlowe, straight up.

Christopher Marlowe is someone that people know the name of, but not the details of his life or who he was. What was it like to get to delve deeper into that, but also to get to know him through his relationship with Will Shakespeare?

BOWER:  At the end of the day, they were contemporaries. The little that we know, you can guess that perhaps they were rivals. And then, with Marlowe’s writing and what he was writing about and the things that he was involved in, one can take from that the sense that perhaps this is a man who’s struggling with his own fate and his idea of mortality. That offered me, as a performer, an opportunity to plunge quite far. And the relationship between the two of them is great. There’s nothing better than a rivalry, particularly in literature. When two brilliant minds meet, sparks will fly.

It’s quite clear that Christopher Marlowe can be a very naughty boy. Was there a point in the process where you really felt that you understood him and got a grasp on who he is and why he does some of the things that he does?

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Image via TNT

BOWER:  Yeah, and he takes his own journey. It was in Episode 2 that I started to come to grips with who this man was. I think the idea of anyone coming to terms with the idea of their own mortality and death, and death in general, sends a man into a bit of a tailspin. I chose to live very separately from everyone else. I actually lived in the words. I isolated myself because I always saw Marlowe as a character who did isolate himself. You can see throughout history that people who are brilliant tend to not really be able to connect with the real world, as it were. So, I wanted to put myself in a scenario whereby I was just totally immersed in the project and there was nothing else to distract me from it. By doing so, I think I was able to try to completely embody the role, both on and off set. That’s not to say that I went method on it, but I definitely made decisions and choices that helped benefit my performance. I think what you’re seeing on screen and what you see Marlowe go through is something that I, not only as a performer but as somebody who does write, as well, have either experienced or was experiencing, at the time.

Why do you think Marlowe is so interested in Shakespeare?

BOWER:  I think what Marlowe sees in Will is parts of himself, before he went too far down the rabbit hole, as it were. I don’t wish to use the word naivete, but that freshness is exciting and pure. The purity of Will compared to Marlowe, who is very jaded and who has seen it all before, is exciting to him because he can manipulate him in a way that makes him feel powerful, but at the same time reminds him of parts of himself. You’ll have to wait to see how that relationship develops, but as we know from history, young William Shakespeare did not remain unknown forever. That surely, in some way, shape or form, will have an affect on Christopher Marlowe on a personal level, perhaps jealousy. Marlowe constantly puts either himself or those around him in very dangerous scenarios, in order for him to be able to write or become inspired. We’ve seen it happen throughout history. The most famous minds put themselves in the most terrible situations because sometimes real life just doesn’t cut it.

Because Shakespeare and Marlowe seem more like rock stars than playwrights, as someone who splits your time between acting and music, did this feel more like a blend of those two worlds?

BOWER:  The thing is that they were rock stars. It was never a conscious thought of me going, “Oh, this blends the two worlds together and makes my job great.” I’m always looking for characters that are different and that are fun to play and that speak to me. I think that’s just naturally the kind of person that I am. I’m the rebel, in some way, shape or form. They were rock stars of their generation. They were revered, they were wildly successful, they were famous, and they were cads. Marlowe was a bit of a drinker and a party animal when he wanted to be. Shakespeare, in our time now, has taken this stuffy, stick your nose up in the air role in our society. Back then, if you went to see a play, there would be booing and people would throw things. It was like being at a rock show. Going to the Globe Theatre to watch a performance was like going to a music festival. So, yeah, absolutely, of course they were rock stars. I love that about them. And I think what this show does brilliantly is that aesthetically we’re able to transport people into that world immediately. We able to really show the grittiness of it.

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Image via TNT

This world seems very high energy and high stakes. What was it like to walk onto these sets and be a part of all of this?

BOWER:  It was amazing! From a personal perspective, I live very close to the Globe, so for me to walk onto set and be somewhere that is less than a three minute walk from my apartment was a very strange, very odd experience, but one which was amazing, at the same time. I’ve never worked on a television show of this scale before. We were immediately immersed into this world. It was like a city within itself. Marlowe’s apartment was one of the coolest sets I’ve ever been on. There was lots of taxidermy stuff. It basically looked like my house, which was great. It was a real honor and a privilege. Also, one of the main things that I was super excited about, doing the show, was to work with someone like Shekhar. If you watch his work, like Elizabeth, you know that the man is going to bring scope and scale to it, and you know that it’s going to look amazing. At no point was this going to look bad. And this is a project that (showrunner) Craig [Pearce] has been working on for about 10 years now and it’s deeply personal to him. The work and the effort that went into the sets and shooting it, across the board, was second to none.

This seems like a character that’s so much fun to play and the world seems like it’s so much fun to live in that it must have been sad to leave it behind, at the end of the season. By the time you got to the end of this season, did you feel like there was so much more to explore with Marlowe? Are you dying to know where things could go, if there are future seasons?

BOWER:  Absolutely! I’m always intrigued to see where he will go. That’s one of the greatest benefits about a television series. You are able to explore, in depth, the humanity of a character. When you have a good few hours to go through it all, you’re not constrained to one-and-a-half or two hours. I’m very excited to see where Marlowe can go. As we know, he met quite an early demise. There’s only further down the rabbit hole that we can go with Marlowe. We can go deep with him, and that is exciting for me. In the series, he has an amazing character arc. He continues to be up and then down, but it’s beautiful, it’s lengthy and it’s gorgeous. You see a man who’s deeply troubled and trying to alleviate that pain, by any means necessary. That’s always exciting. I don’t think that pain every left him.

When it comes to Shakespeare, actors either seem to be terrified of his work and never want to touch it, or they’ve spent a lot of time on stage performing it. Which category do you fall into?

BOWER:  I am in both categories. I would love to be able to sit here and say with hand on heart, “Absolutely, I can dive into Shakespeare and understand the work 100% and do a brilliant job with it!” But no, I think the work needs to be revered. Growing up in England, Shakespeare is part of our history and culture, so from an early age, you’re thrown into it. Now, I didn’t go to drama school. From my conversations with people who have gone to drama school, I know that they do dive quite heavily into Shakespeare while they’re studying. I was never given that opportunity, so I never went. It was never a body of work that I deeply studied, but of course, I understand the importance of the writing. I’ve had experience performing Shakespeare, both at school and out of school. When I was 12, I did an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, called The Dreaming, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It’s very, very hard to avoid Shakespeare. His work seeps into our lives, whether we want it to or not. So, I fall in both categories. I’m not afraid of giving it a shot, though.

As someone who splits your time between acting and music, what’s it like to go from doing a show like this to doing live shows with your music?

BOWER:  It’s great. I’m having an amazing time! They’re vastly different worlds. From being on set and getting dressed up in amazing costumes and attaching your own personal experience to somebody else’s words, to being on stage and performing and ultimately baring your soul with no guard up in front of you, whatsoever, it makes me feel like I’m being pulled two completely different ways and sometimes like I could be two completely different people. But I think that’s who I am, in a weird way. I’ve never felt like I belonged to one specific category or thing. It’s been a trip. It’s been an absolute trip to come off of shooting for seven or eight months, from beginning to end, and being a bit nuts, living in the woods, to all of a sudden being thrown out in front of thousands of people, having not really spent much time with other human beings. It’s wild and crazy!

Will airs on Monday nights on TNT.

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Image via TNT