Archie Panjabi says she tried to “capture Kate O’Mara’s fire and make it my own” in her portrayal of the latest incarnation of Doctor Who’s villainous Rani, describing the actress who originated the character as “the queen”.
“I rewatched the episodes and what stood out was this incredible strength and presence,” Panjabi said, in an interview with Radio Times magazine. “She was so unforgettable that I did want the audience to look at the Rani and get a sense of Kate O'Mara’s Rani, just for a split second, while seeing her.”
O’Mara’s amoral “time lady” scientist first appeared in 1985 in The Mark of The Rani opposite the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), returning in 1987 for Time and the Rani in which she triggers the Doctor’s regeneration, with Baker replaced by Sylvester McCoy.
“Colin was not at all pleased. He didn’t want to be regenerated but I insisted,” O’Mara joked in an interview with the BBC shortly before her unexpected death in 2014, aged 74. “[The Rani] is one of only two female time lords so I have my own special niche. Whether I’ve been regenerated or not, I don’t know…”
There are undoubtedly echoes of O’Mara in Panjabi’s Rani – not least in her costume, which nods to O’Mara’s Rani’s iconic shoulder-padded red brocade ensemble, and in her charismatic, camp megalomania – but this new Rani is very much her own woman.
“I didn’t want to mimic [O’Mara] because this Rani is different and I wanted to embrace Russell [T Davies]’s brilliant script and dialogue,” Panjabi said.
The British actress, who shot to global fame playing the razor-sharp, kick-ass investigator Kalinda Sharma in Robert and Michelle King’s The Good Wife, told Radio Times that the Rani was unlike any character she’d played before, and finding inspirations for her had been challenging.
“Normally, when I take on a character, I look at other characters for inspiration but, other than Kate O’Mara, it was a struggle to find others on a par with her.”
Describing the Rani as “deliciously twisted” and a character who has “no moral compass and that’s new territory for me as an actress”, Panjabi did find inspiration in the Bollywood villain, Mogambo, from Mr India, a 1987 movie that is now a milestone in Hindi cinema.
“As a child, he terrified me yet I couldn’t look away. His evil didn’t just frighten me – it fascinated me.”
Of the Rani, she said: “I have played some fierce women in my time, but she takes the biscuit.”
Read the full interview in Radio Times, out now.
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