Why The Man Who Fell to Earth bosses picked Bill Nighy to take on David Bowie's role
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If iconic characters being played by new actors has become a pop-cultural inevitability these days, it was still a daunting prospect for the creators of The Man Who Fell to Earth. The Showtime series serves as a continuation of the 1976 film of the same name, which starred David Bowie as an alien, known as Thomas Newton, who becomes addicted to the human vices of sex, alcohol, and TV.
"You can't think of the film without thinking of David Bowie," series co-creator Alex Kurtzman told EW ahead of the show's premiere. "And it was a radically daunting prospect to stand in his shadow. His legacy is very meaningful to people, and that was not something to play around with lightly. The hubris of even choosing to do that could take you down."
Studiocanal/REX/Shutterstock David Bowie in 'The Man Who Fell to Earth'
Still, Kurtzman says now, he and his fellow showrunner Jenny Lumet soon "came upon the realization that we needed Thomas Newton in this story." In the premiere episode, Chiwetel Ejiofor's extraterrestrial visitor arrives on Earth to continue Newton's failed mission: find a way to save their dying planet, Anthea. In the second, he comes face to face with Newton himself, who's far from the dapper, reserved figure played by Bowie.
"We thought, who would that character be 45 years later based on what happened in the film?" Kurtzman explains. "What does that metastasize into, and who do you become? And then suddenly, we realized, we're not writing David Bowie, or even that old version of Thomas Newton anymore. We're writing an entirely new character. And that's what made it something worth doing for us."
Still, the challenge of finding someone to play that new character remained an immense one. "By choosing to bring the character back, you are casting somebody who will inevitably be compared to David Bowie, no matter what you do," says Kurtzman. "So once you're in that paradigm, you need to cast somebody who in and of himself is a legend, but also is not going to be doing a David Bowie impression."
They ultimately found that in someone who Kurtzman calls one of "the truly most brilliant actors on the planet": Bowie's fellow Englishman Bill Nighy, who had been lucky enough to meet the musician, albeit briefly, on multiple occasions.
Aimee Spinks/SHOWTIME Bill Nighy as Thomas Newton in 'The Man Who Fell to Earth'
"One of the things that really gave me a lot of comfort was knowing that Bill knew Bowie a little bit, at least enough to understand what his presence and spirit felt like in person," Kurtzman says. "He was channeling something about that performance, but also, he was doing his own thing. And Bill would tell you himself that he really, really wanted to honor Bowie and his performance."
Adds Ejiofor, who previously costarred with Nighy in Love Actually, "It's just incredible, the richness he brings to these parts. He's another iconic figure, really, to carry on the mantle of Thomas Jerome Newton. It was a really rich experience to go back into a world that had been created in such an amazing and iconic way."
The Man Who Fell to Earth airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime.
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