Andy Pryor

They had a general casting meeting worldwide.

with Andy Pryor so he could meet all the Welsh talent.

And I was doing chorus of disapproval up in, up in Theatre Clwyd.

So I couldn't get to it.

So I'd sort of seen Julie.

I'd never met her, but she'd worked on it and obviously seen my work.

I didn't get the general meeting with Andy Pryor, but I did get... an audition to go in and see him for the role of Reese, the semi-regular role, the boyfriend of, of Gwen Cooper.

So I didn't get the general, but I did, I was lucky enough to get an audition from it in like the February kind of thing.

I remember it very, very clearly.

I went to an audition with an Andy, in fact, Andy Pryor.

And I only had one audition.

And I was in the middle of recording a comedy sketch show for Channel 5 at the time.

So I remember me missing the sort of general kind of audition, general meetings that they were holding in the BBC in Wales.

That Andy Pryor was sort of holding, wanted to meet a lot of Welsh actors and they sort of went in.

I remember speaking to my agent, look, I'm not available to go meet for this audition or this general sort of meeting that was going on.

But I'm really interested and I would love to be seen for it, obviously, because, you know, it's...

You know, this is going to, you know, it's one episode or four scenes in an episode or whatever it may be.

You know, you want that.

I did go in to meet Andy Pryor.

I went into his office and I read a scene from the Who series that I'd been on.

In 2005, Russell, a lifelong fan of the British sci-fi show Doctor Who, secured what he called his dream job, reviving the series for a new generation of TV viewers, initially up until 2010. under his stewardship, knew who transformed a show that had been considered clapped out by BBC bosses into a colossal cultural sensation, drawing over 10 million viewers and revitalising primetime family television.

alongside casting director Andy Pryor, Russell cast Christopher Eccleston, and later David Tennant as the Doctor, pairing them with Billy Piper to craft stories rooted in a gritty, working-class reality.

Russell then expanded the Hooniverse by producing the more adult spin-off Torchwood, starring John Barrowman as Jack Harkness, and the children's series The Sarah Jane Adventures, starring Elizabeth Sladen.

In 2009, Russell moved to Los Angeles with his long-term partner Andrew, a civil servant he'd met towards the end of the 90s.

That was, that was, that was literally why I decided to write that story, um, and, a-a-and, and, and to cast it that way.

I'm also backed by a brilliant casting director called Andy Pryor, who's really a kind of world leader in this-

Mm

... kind of stuff and passionate about disabled representation and, and a-authentic casting across the board, and I found myself agreeing with that.

Mm.

And, um, and there was a kind of a thinking amongst the team.

There was a great big sigh of thinking, "But isn't that gonna limit us? Surely there's only three trans people who could play this part, and what if they don't fit the part?" Andy Pryor went off and came back with fifteen, twenty people, and we had glorious auditions.

Paris Lees auditioned for that.