Tom Ellis talks “Lucifer” and being a Christian playing The Devil

By Abbie Bernstein On April 22, 2016 In Actor Interviews, Science Fiction & Fantasy Actor and Author Interviews No Comments

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: TOM ELLIS ON “LUCIFER”

Tom Ellis stars as Lucifer, A comedy on Fox about the newly kindhearted Devil who aligns himself with a homicide detective to solve the murders of Los Angeles.

By Abbie Bernstein

Renewed for its 2nd season, Lucifer is a comedy on Fox about the unruly son of the Devil who retires from his position in Hell and moves to L.A. where he opens a nightclub. After a murder outside of his club, Lucifer is shocked to discover a foreign feeling welling up inside: compassion. The series follows him exercising his newfound empathy by assisting Chloe, a homicide detective, to solve murders around the city.

The Devil has had many names throughout history. There’s Satan, the Fallen One, Beelzebub, Old Nick, the Prince of Darkness, and of course Lucifer. Now we can add to that Tom Ellis, who is playing the eponymous hero in Fox Network’s LUCIFER.

In Tom Kapinos’ television adaptation of the D.C. Comics series by Mike Carey, that is an offshoot of Neil Gaiman’s venerated SANDMAN graphic novels, Lucifer isn’t evil, simply bored with presiding over the damned in Hell.

So Lucifer does what any supernatural being presumably would do if given the chance – he leaves the underworld unattended and opens a nightclub in Los Angeles. Then he’s intrigued by LAPD detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German) and decides – over her protests – to help her solve murder cases. Lucifer also avails himself of psychotherapy while dealing with his sibling (i.e., angry angel) and father issues.

Ellis, originally from Bangor, Wales, has had some experience with supernatural television before. In the U.K., he guest-starred on the DOCTOR WHO episode “The Last of the Time Lords,” played Cenred in the MERLIN series, and was a regular on THE FADES. Additionally, he was the object of the heroine’s adoration in the BBC comedy series MIRANDA.

In the U.S., Ellis appeared in the feature BUFFALO SOLDIERS, was the outside-the-law doctor lead in RUSH, guest-starred on FX’s THE STRAIN and played the first incarnation of Robin Hood on ONCE UPON A TIME.

At a LUCIFER Q&A panel hosted by Fox for the Television Critics Association, and at a party hosted by Fox later that evening, Ellis proves almost as playful as his onscreen character.

Asked why he thinks the producers chose him to play Lucifer, Ellis deadpans:

“Because I had little horns sticking out of my head. As I was walking out of the room [they said], ‘He’s got a tail as well! He’s our guy!’”

In fact, there are moments, when Lucifer gets angry, when he does sport what Ellis calls, “Devil-face.” Still, he adds,

“I’ve dealt with more green-screen than this. We don’t do an awful lot on this show at all on the green-screen thing. It’s very, very limited. One of the things that really drew me to the show was, it wasn’t that reliant on special effects. There are those things, but I think you have to somewhere along the line find a way of buying into it. I’ve never on this job sat in a completely green[-screen] studio, let’s put it that way. And I’ve done jobs like that, where there’s nothing around you that’s anything to do with what you’re doing. [LUCIFER is] much more reality-based.”

There weren’t any particular previous notions in Ellis’ mind about Lucifer, he says.

“The weird thing is, obviously, everyone’s got their idea of who the Devil is. And it’s as infamous a figure in people’s minds as Santa Claus or anyone like that, and so I didn’t have any preconceived ideas or – it wasn’t like I was sitting there going, ‘I need to play the Devil,’ but then this part came along and I loved the part. The idea of the Devil side of it was something I didn’t really comprehend.”

Coincidentally, a number of Ellis’ close family members are in the clergy, but the actor says Satan and damnation have never really been topics when discussing theology.

“My dad’s a pastor. My uncle’s a pastor. My sister’s a pastor. I grew up on the very human side of Christianity, so messages in the household I grew up in were about peace, love and being understanding of everybody, which I think is quite cool. And with regard to this [Ellis playing Lucifer], they’re all super-excited I’m doing it.”

LUCIFER’s tone, Ellis says, may not be what people expect.

“There’s a sort of gravity that people assume comes with this, and I try to strip away all of that and make him make what he’s going through as human as possible, but for someone you would perceive as not human. So everything he is experiencing – experience of humanity is all new for him. He’s very good at certain things. But the humans, I guess, get lost on him sometimes.”

But wouldn’t Lucifer have some notions of what people are like, having presided over the souls of damned humans for millennia? Ah, but the damned have already made their choices, while the living have yet to commit to a fate, good or bad.

“He’s encountering ambiguity for the first time,” Ellis explains. “We had quite a fun analogy, actually, when [executive producer/director] Len [Wiseman] and I were first talking about how Lucifer perceives human beings. And we talked about them being lab rats for Lucifer. There’s no conscience behind it, it’s just about, ‘Oh, you’re doing this, and you’re doing that, and that means …’ And he’s putting the puzzle in place of humanity through all these experiences he’s going through. The biggest thing about why he probably works with Chloe is, he’s fascinated by her, not what she’s investigating.”

When Neil Gaiman created Lucifer in the SANDMAN series, he intended the character to resemble David Bowie. Ellis said this didn’t influence his approach to the character,

“But music is a massive part of this show. It was a big thing in the pilot script and something we’re trying to continue through the series. Lucifer’s taste in music is a big thing, because he’s an appreciator of music, and talent, and all those things. What we did do was take some of Bowie’s music and infuse it into the pilot. And Lucifer is a massive David Bowie fan.”

So is there a character or person that Ellis finds comparable to Lucifer?

“Well, I think there were a few things that I drew from when I was thinking about the part. One of the big ones was, the way the character was written, it was almost like it was it was from another time, like it was an Oscar Wilde character, or like a Noel Coward character. But it was infused with this kind of rock ‘n’ roll spirit and energy. So I’ve said before, I maintain this, my sort of picture of who this guy was, was the love child of Noel Coward and Mick Jagger.”

In terms of his own career, Ellis thinks the eponymous doctor in RUSH is as near as he’s come previously to playing someone like Lucifer.

“I guess Rush was a bit of a rock ‘n’ roller. He loved his music and he was a bit of a bad boy. And I think the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll is what it’s alluding to. I think Rush is the closest part I’ve done to this one so far.”

Does Lucifer actually want to reconcile with his Father – that is, God – does he really want to be left alone, or do we know?

“I think he thinks he wants to be left alone, but actually, if he’s going to make any progress in life, he needs to make reconciliation somewhere.”

What would Ellis most like us to know about LUCIFER the show and Lucifer the character?

“LUCIFER the show – I’d like people to know that it’s probably not what they expect it to be. It’s a lot funnier than they expect it to be. As a person, he’s not all that bad. Lucifer himself says, ‘Am I the Devil because I’m intrinsically evil, or am I the Devil, because dear old Dad decided I was,’ and that’s kind of the crux of where we find him in the show.”

“We’re not trying to be didactic about anything. It’s not some big theological debate. It’s fun. We’re using the character of Lucifer to tell a new story in a fun way. If there’s anything at the heart of it all, in any way a kind of message, it’s we should take a look at ourselves and responsibility for our own actions, as opposed to trying to put it into some mythical ether and blaming it on someone else.”

Interviewed by Abbie Bernstein