The Nigel Pivaro Interview

In February 2000, Nigel Pivaro (aka Terry Duckworth) was guest of honour at the annual British Isles Show in Toronto. He was kind enough to sit down with me for a few minutes to discuss his character and the show. I'm happy to say that Nigel is the exact opposite of Terry. (An article which uses this interview ran in the June 3, 2000, edition of TV Guide Canada.)

 

Ken: How do you like Toronto?

Nigel: I haven't really had the opportunity to see that much of it, but what I've seen so far I've been very impressed with.

Ken: Have you been here before?

Nigel: No. The only thing I wasn't impressed with was the airport.

Ken: Really? It's kind of chaotic there.

Nigel: Well, it's customs and immigration. You kind of get used to Britain that way, because we're in the EC. Unless you're coming from somewhere very exotic, you just sail right through. But I was walking around Toronto last night and today. I went to Chinatown. I walked back from Chinatown to the hotel. This morning I walked from one hotel to the other, to go to the pool, to do some swimming. And I thought, all these underground pathways, with all these shops, this is good. This is really nice, it's warm, it's not too sterile.

Well, we need it because it gets so cold here in the winter.

That's why you do it, yeah. Walking through, I thought, there's something missing here. What's missing? And I thought, no graffiti, no rubbish, no drunks in the corner - you know what I mean? It's good, it's the way to run a town.

We try. But if you want to see all that, I can show you.

(Laughs) I'm sure. But there's very few places you can go in major British cities. It's just graffiti, smashed windows, and a general malaise of negativity.

I guess it comes with years of economic struggle -

- and the wet weather!

I was over about a year ago, I kind of got lost in London... down near the Thames... I started to fear for my life.

(Laughs) It probably looks more intimidating than it is. But the jury is still out, I've only seen certain sections of Toronto. What I have seen is impressive, without a lot of crap you get in England, and Europe in general. Less so than in the past.

But Toronto's not as historical.

Well, there's that isn't there? You have got some old buildings, which are very nice. And the modern buildings, there's something about them... I was walking through Chinatown to the Hilton last night, and I thought, there's something very attractive about this town and I can't quite put my finger on it. It reminds of New York, in a way, but it's nicer. I think it's because you have gaps in the skyline. In New York, you sort of feel lost, and you don't get any perspective on anywhere else in the city from street level. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I do. It's all 40-storey buildings.

You can look east-west-south-north, and you'll only see the building in front of you, and you don't see anything beyond that. You don't get any perspective. That's the nice thing about Toronto. There's little breaks and gaps in Toronto's skyline, so it makes you appreciate the perspective from this vista, from that vista. It's very important.

I'd never even considered that.

Anyway... fire away with any questions.

OK. On Coronation Street, you have a unique character, in that you come in for a month, have a heavy storyline, then go away for eight months, then you come back. Do you prefer that to a more regular character?

(Thinks) I'll be honest with you. Be straight. When I'm doing the Street, and I'm doing a nice heavy storyline, and I come out of the Street and I have some other work for about, you know, whatever, 2 or 3 jobs - bit of theatre, bit of TV - it's wonderful. I think, what a smart idea it was to leave, what a great system I've got here. I can go into the Street when I want, and I've got the freedom to do other things. That's when I think it's great. When I think it's awful, when I get depressed about it, is when I do the Street and don't get any other work in between times.

I've always thought it's the best of both worlds, because you're on a soap that's watched by 20 million people, but you don't have the daily grind, 300 days a year, that the others have.

As I say, when it's working well, that is great, and you're absolutely right. It's when you get a bleak patch that's when you think, Aw, why can't I do six months on the Street instead of two or three? I think overall, it's better to have that freedom. As I say, there are times when you just think I could do with the regularity and the security.

Terry's probably the most hated character in the history of Coronation Street. When you see the script and Terry's doing something really evil, is that fun?

It is a lot of fun. But it's gotta have a logic. For instance, with this storyline recently [in which Terry sold a dangerous car to his mother], I think they overlooked the fact I would just play it kind of through and through with malice aforethought, whereas I actually played it - and I reasoned with them - that I'm sorry, but Terry's a bad sort, but he's not so bad, nor is he so stupid, as to sell his mother a car which he thinks would break up just like that. There's gotta be some other reason why he sold that car. Something dodgy, maybe... So, I said, I'm playing it like he knows there's something wrong with that car but he didn't know there was something so wrong that it would break up just like that. So, I said, I'm playing it like he's been a dupe of somebody else. And, yeah, he passed it on to his mother, but he didn't realize... Because he loves his mother, and he wouldn't be so stupid, because if there was any problem, it would come straight back on him, which it did. So, I made them think along those lines. Whatever you're doing on any drama, especially if the character's long-established, you don't want to all of a sudden be doing something without historical reason. As long as it's been well thought-out, it is good to do, it's interesting. You know it's going to cause a bit of controversy, you know it's going to cause a stir, you know it's going to keep people watching. It's a flattering situation to be in, and it's a responsible situation to be in as well. You know that if you blow it, you're going to ruin a very good storyline.

Do you ever catch any grief in public for what Terry does? Do little old ladies ever come up and start hitting you with their umbrellas?

No, (laughs), I'm sure they probably want to, but I'm too fast for them (laughs). I have to say that, over the years, Terry's done some dodgy things, however, I've always been surprised by how reasonable people have been. That's not to say that there hasn't been, every now and then, a couple of incidents. But, like I say, you have to be quick.

If you could write an episode, what would you have Terry do, or what would you have happen to Terry?

You know, if I had that privilege... After how far they've taken him in being the nasty guy, I think it's time to turn him back. You know, he's got about four children to about three different women - or is it three children? I've lost count - the girl he first got pregnant was a girl called Andrea Clayton, back in '85, and that was the time that started to turn him. All that was wrong for him. She got pregnant, she had the child, he wanted to support her, she didn't want him. She rejected him. She went and brought up the child somewhere else. It was a great insult to Terry's pride and his fatherly instinct. A lot of men have fatherly instincts, even men like Terry. Anyway, the next thing, I would have the young lad come back, who would now be fifteen or sixteen, I would have him try to contact his father, I would have a reconciliation and reunion between this kid and Terry. And I would have that rekindle those kind of emotions that Terry had for the girl and the kid at the time. I would make that enable Terry to become much more responsible and much more considerate.

Then I would have the kid have an operation or something like that. He needs a donor kidney, or something. And then I would have Terry donate the kidney. I know how I would do that. I've got a great love of this movie called Angels with Dirty Faces. Jimmy Cagney and Pat O'Brien. These two kids run away from the cops. One outruns the cops, the other wasn't so fast, the cops got him, he went through reform school and he turned out bad. After a life of crime, Jimmy Cagney comes back to the area, and he gets in touch with his old pal the priest, played by Pat O'Brien. He's a hero to all the local kids. Pat O'Brien pleads with him to try to put the kids on the straight and narrow. Cagney knows they hero-worship him. He says no, nothing doing, nothing doing. Eventually, he gets involved in a little murder, and he goes to the chair for it. Pat O'Brien comes to see him, and he says, won't you just say something to these kids, don't go down a rebel and hero to them. Make them see the futility of it all, and the error of their ways and the error of your ways. And Cagney says, nothing doing, nothing doing. So Pat O'Brien's really jaded and really upset. The next thing is, Cagney goes to electric chair, and just as he goes he looks Pat O'Brien right in the eye - he's got no fear - and then he goes past Pat O'Brien. The whole thing is, will he turn yellow? And all the prison guards are betting. And he's cold as ice. As he goes the last few paces to the chair he starts, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" He does that for Pat O'Brien, and he does that for the kids. So they can all read that he was yellow. So the myth was exploded. As the audience, we know that what he did the noblest thing he'd ever done in his life, and in fact it took more courage for him to do that, than to actually walk to the electric chair cool and calm and collected, and to go out a hero.

What I'd like to do is, the only person who can give the organ to the kid is Terry, because of the DNA and his blood group matches and all that. But he says to everybody that he doesn't want to do it. So he thinks, how can I do this, without it looking like suicide. Because he wants to give his life for the kid, but he doesn't want everybody to know. He thinks, what I'll do is I'll go diving. I'll go diving until I run out of air. They'll find my organs intact, and nobody will know - they'll think it was all an accident. Maybe write a letter that the kid can read when he's 21 or something. So he dies, he deliberately runs out of air. So you see him, watching the gauge, it goes on red. You see the gauge on red, you see Terry looking back at the gauge. One last look at Terry, and he sinks off into unconciousness. Then they find him. And of course, the kid gets the organ and the kid lives.

A sacrifice but nobody can know about it.

Absolutely. That'll never happen, but that is a sort of a fantasy. It's so good dramatically. Yes, I'd be out of a job, but it'd be so good it'd be worth it. I love that aspect of the characters in the show not knowing, but the audience knowing. That always fascinates me, like that scene with Jimmy Cagney. We, the audience, know what he sacrificed. All the characters don't know. We've got something over them.

That'd be a good funeral. All the characters would be bad-mouthing Terry but we'd all be thinking, no, no that's wrong.

What a twist. You never know. That would almost never come to fruition. Although, that's what I would actually like to happen, but it's slightly tongue-in-cheek in that I know it would never happen. However, I would like that after all this time, something like that would take place in which his character is redeemed. The journey back would be interesting. There's nothing more interesting than a poacher turned gamekeeper, is there? He could then be a kind of antidote to all the other villains that come in the show because he'd know how to handle them.

 

This article is © copyright 2000, Ken Carriere, and was first published in an abridged form in the Canadian TV Guide. Permission must be given before any reproduction.


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