David Tennant with his kitten co-star behind the scenes of Doctor Who

"Actually, David's quite attached to one of them. He's refusing to set it down!"

Tobias is just... he is one of the humblest people I know. He works everyday at trying to be a good person and be a good steward of the power he has in the world and bring richness to other people's lives. He's a beautiful person.
So handing him a character who is so... who has decided to live a life that is performative is so unlike Tobias. At least Tobias I think I know. I'm not surprised in retrospect that he gave Fitzjames the benefit of the humanity that he naturally has as a person. By making sure that the performance (of Fitzjames) was not truly at anyone else's expense.
It allowed Tobias and the audience to understand, yeah, this is a character full of contradictions. He's very brave in certain situations but seems hesitant in other situations. He is most comfortable being at the center of attention but only when he's not who he truly is. I mean, there are lots of ways that this character is fractured. But I think what Tobias did was so lovely.
He took the cues from the scripts and created a character, a version of this hidden, frightened kind of man who's sort of been let down by the real circumstances of his life and built a different life for himself. He made out of this character, the version he can love best. And I think that's why his last episodes are so moving. Because you understand when he does, that he can, that there is something to love in himself. And that he's been avoiding looking at himself directly for so many years, he doesn't know how. And when the circumstances, and Crozier by example, and other things teach him how, he's ready to do it. And I think that's something Tobias brought to this — a readiness for Fitzjames to love himself when the moment came.
Which made him, guided him to sort of slightly recalibrate some of the things that were in the script. So smart, these actors... honestly, every one of them. What a joy. @