Tom Ellis on life after Lucifer

Not many people dance with the devil and leave the floor intact but Tom Ellis has always been a deft mover.

Playing the lead role in Lucifer made the Welsh actor a global star, loved and lusted over by millions. After six extremely successful seasons - three on Fox, three on Netflix - Ellis decided to step away before the show started playing the same old tunes.

This year has been a banner one for Ellis, featuring major roles in breezy rom-com Players in February, animated comedy Exploding Kittens in July, and sexy psychological thriller Tell Me Lies in August. He's also filmed the prestige historical drama Washington Black, although that one has yet to lock in a release date.

Tell Me Lies was written by his wife Meaghan Oppenheimer - and it isn't the only collaboration between the pair...

SM: Firstly, congratulations on the birth of your daughter!

TE: Thank you! It's actually great. I haven't had a baby for a long time - and I love babies. Meaghan and I are so thrilled and happy. Dolly's just a perfect little baby at the moment. I say at the moment, because I've got enough experience to realise that it could all change overnight.

SM: Do you know all the tricks of the trade by now?

TE: Oh, for sure. I wasn't anxious in any way, shape or form, really - apart from there's always some degree of anxiety around the birth. But being with a baby and a newborn, no, it doesn't riddle me with anxiety anymore. I feel like I know what I'm doing. I think it's been quite helpful for Meaghan actually.

In the grand scheme of things, I was a very young dad when I was first a father at age 26. Well, it seems really young. But if I go back to Sheffield and see my mates from school, a lot of them had got married and had two or three kids by then.

SM: Your projects since Lucifer have been quite eclectic: Exploding Kittens, Tell Me Lies, Players, Washington Black. Is that deliberate or simply how the cards have fallen?

TE: It's a bit of both really. As an actor, intrinsically I am craving variety all the time. Before Lucifer, I'd never done a role for that amount of time. And it was a lovely character and it was great - but the reason that I got into acting in the first place was the variety of roles. I've always wanted to try and do something completely different to the last thing that I've just done.

Exploding Kittens came along just as an opportunity. I've always loved animation. They approached me about doing it and it was a bit of a no brainer really. I wasn't aware of the card game, although my kids were; I went off what they'd sent me and it was really funny.

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SM: Is it adult animation?

TE: It's probably around PG-13. My 12-year-old Marnie has watched it. I got some preview screeners and she really enjoyed it. It's not too adult for her by any stretch. It's more like that naughty Family Guy humour. It services everybody.

SM: And you're God Cat?

TE: I play God Cat; God trapped in the body of the cat. So God has taken his eye off the ball in heaven and the angels have decided that he's lost so much touch with humanity that he needs to go back down and remember what it is he loves about humans. He gets caught by surprise a little bit and expelled from heaven. And when he gets to Earth, he realises that they've put him inside the body of a house cat. It's probably the most humiliating experience he could ever think about.

SM: If you're God, you probably think you're above all that.

TE: Exactly. Although most cats do think they're God, to be fair.

SM: Do you guys have any pets?

TE: We have two cats. We got them when I was shooting the third season of Lucifer, which inspired their names: Cain and Abel. They are hilarious and terrified of Dolly.

SM: Does Cain bully Abel?

TE: It's actually the other way round. Abel is somewhat on the larger side these days - so if they have a little fight, Abel ends up lying on top of Cain and he can't get out.

SM: You also have season two of Tell Me Lies, which is written by Meaghan...

TE: Meaghan really wanted to explore the ripple effect of the main relationship in the first season. We spend more time this season with other members of the group and the experiences they're going through.

She also wanted to write a story about a power imbalance. It's quite a common theme in many people's lives - they find themselves in a relationship with someone who's older than them, someone who maybe is not meant to be in that relationship, maybe having an affair or there's a clandestine nature to it because of the position that person's in.

The interesting thing about Tell Me Lies is it's all set before #MeToo. It's set in both 2008 and 2015 - my storyline takes place in the 2008 timeline. And there are many, many things that we were able to explore about the nuance and the darkness of those kind of relationships - before people were encouraged to speak up and notice how wrong they actually are.

SM: Are you an antagonistic character?

TE: I would suggest that I am an antagonistic character. Of all the parts that I've played - and I played the devil - this feels like the darkest character, for sure.

A lot of people think they know what the story is going to be, but there is a lot more to it than that. And Meaghan being the dark, twisted writer that she is, there are quite a few surprises in there that will test people's moral compasses.

SM: She created this dark character and thought, 'I know who'd be great for this...'

TE: 'My husband!' But Meaghan knows lots of things that I've done in the past. A lot of people are only aware of my roles in Miranda and Lucifer. She knows that I wanted to explore different types of roles and different tones of shows.

She wrote the role with me in mind because she knew I had the capability to deliver in that area. If it had been someone else's project and this part had come up, I don't think they would've thought of me.

SM: The first season is quite racy...

TE: Very racy. Sex is part of the dialogue of the show. It's not just TV sex, if you know what I mean. These are physical conversations that are happening and they're not always good conversations. Rather than just being gratuitous sex for no reason, it is very much part of the fabric of what the show is.

I was trying to think of soundbites for season two of the show. And I do think Tell Me Lies is a show about the lies that we are prepared to tell ourselves and each other when sex or love is on the line.

SM: That's a good soundbite.

TE: Thank you. Yeah, my wife liked that one as well. With the first season, so many people were talking on social media and contacting Meaghan about how they'd had a Steven in their life, this one toxic relationship. It is a really universal theme.

SM: How was working with Meaghan?

TE: I loved it. We've worked together before. I did a little bit on her show Queen America a few years ago. The weird thing about us is that we are able to separate church and state when we're at work.

Meaghan is brilliant at what she does. She gives incredible notes, she's really performance driven. She went to NYU as an actress and a writer. She gravitated towards writing but she really has an appreciation of acting and how to talk to actors.

SM: How did you guys meet?

TE: When I was shooting the pilot of Lucifer. We had a mutual friend trying to set us up but we were both a bit flaky. I was out for dinner with that friend on my night off and he noticed Meaghan sitting across the restaurant. I saw her and I was like, 'Oh my God, why have I been so flaky?' We invited them over to the table and that was pretty much the start of our relationship.

SM: And you accidentally said 'I love you' on your second date?

TE: By accident, yeah. I was laughing at something and it just came out. I was like, 'Oh God, I love you!' But it's true. I did and I still do, very much.

SM: Three years since Lucifer ended - do you miss it?

TE: I miss going to work every day with those people. That was a huge part of the job for me. Through doing Lucifer, I got introduced to the fan convention circuit and my God, it's been an amazing kind experience. I've been all over the world now, doing different fan conventions, and the show still lives on fully since we finished. With streaming, it's always there for people. So I miss the experience of making it but I don't miss the show. I feel like it's still there. It's still very much in people's consciousness and that's a huge point of pride for me. It hasn't gone away.

SM: Have you been to Brazil yet? I hear you have a huge fanbase there.

TE: South America is all crazy for it. Weirdly, the show is incredibly popular in all the traditionally Catholic countries in the world. They've invited me to Brazil a few times. The timing's never worked out but we will go to Brazil at some point. That is the epicentre of the Lucifer fandom. I really want to go but I'm slightly scared as well.

SM: Any particularly surreal encounters at these conventions?

TE: Not so much surreal. I've met a few people along the way. Alice Cooper wanted a photo with me, which blew my mind. Apparently he's a massive Lucifer fan. I've met William Shatner. I've had the chance to meet proper heroes of mine.

The mad thing about conventions is we make the show as a piece of entertainment. But people often come up and say, 'Your show helped me through a really dark period in my life.' Or 'You helped me through anxiety.' Or 'My dad and I used to watch it together and now I watch it on my own because my dad died and it's the only thing that we had.' Stuff like that. You never really think about the potential impact of something when you're making it. That's been both humbling and overwhelming.

SM: Everybody knows about the show being cancelled by Fox and then picked up by Netflix after you campaigned in the media for its continuation. What was the first day of season four like? Back on set after your unlikely resurrection?

TE: The hairs on my arm literally just went up, because I just thought about that day! Everyone was just so happy. They were so happy. Everyone loved working on the show so much. It was like snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. It was like a 95th minute winner and going to work that day was the open-top bus tour. Everyone just wanted to come up and have a big hug. It was wonderful. And that feeling continued right through until we finished.

You would think that in this industry that everyone feels grateful all the time to be doing what they're doing. Unfortunately that isn't the case. But in this particular instance, it did feel like that. It was such a euphoric, buoyant feeling, there was a real energy about it. Being on Netflix meant a 10-episode order as opposed to 22. Everyone felt re-energised and they were able to use that energy properly, not having to reserve bits for five months down the road when we were only on episode 13 or whatever.

SM: How was the last day on set?

TE: It was really tough. There'd been a big buildup to it. At the beginning of season five, we were told that's the last season. And I was like, 'I don't want to talk about the end, please. No one mention the end. I just want to do it.' And right before we finished shooting, Netflix changed their mind and said, 'Do you want to do a sixth season?' It was almost like I'd prepared myself to train for a marathon and I was about to finish and then they went, 'Oh, do you want to do another 10km?' So it was weird. It was a two-year process of preparation.

By the end, I think everyone was ready to finish but ready to finish in a good way. Everyone had prepped for it and everyone was ready. And we spent most of that last season being very aware of that. The final day was emotional but there were emotional days before that as well. It was quite chaotic during that final season.

SM: Was season seven on the table?

TE: I think Netflix would've wanted to carry on doing it. But I had gotten to the end of my contract and I wanted to do something else. We made 92 episodes. It's on there for everyone to see. And if you do too much, if you exhaust something, then you're dropping your level of quality - and I think that if we pushed on, we would've really been in danger of that. I don't want to be in season 18 of something.

SM: Did you take a memento from the set?

TE: I did. In Lucifer's penthouse, there was this fake elephant tusk that had all this innate carving through it and a band around the tip. Now you can imagine among the minds of our filthy cast that it represented something else. We would play with that quite a lot during shooting over the years. So of all the things I needed to take home, that was it.

SM: There will surely be ambitions to continue this incredibly popular property. Has James Gunn reached out to you?

TE: I haven't heard from James Gunn yet. I mean, I had the same thought with the whole announcement about James redoing the DC universe. We're Vertigo comics, which is an offshoot of DC. But I know that James has got a big masterplan because my trainer Paolo Mascitti trains all the DC people now. He's just trained David Corenswet and all the cast of the Superman movie. So I've been working out alongside these people for the last six months.

SM: Can you lift more than Superman?

TE: I cannot! David went on a mission when he got the job and he put on quite a lot of muscle. I'm not anywhere near that.

SM: Were you ever approached about playing Lucifer in Sandman?

TE: No, it was never a thing. Neil Gaiman has acknowledged that there are various different guises of Lucifer. Neil didn't have a lot of input in my Lucifer - they'd got the rights to the comic and did their thing with it. But he's very much the showrunner of Sandman so I think that he wanted to bring it back to the vision of his comic. It might've been a bit jarring, if you'd put my Lucifer in that production. I thought Sandman was great but tonally very different to our show.

SM: That's the intriguing bit! Gwendoline Christie was fantastic but it would have been interesting to see your take on the character for Sandman...

TE: It would've been interesting. I had that one episode that I did on The Flash. It was quite interesting to go and work with other people. And I was given licence to improvise a bit and take the piss out of people. It was good fun. I just don't know if that would've worked on Sandman.

SM: Did you have a post-Lucifer checklist of stuff you wanted to do?

TE: I needed sleep! That's what I needed to do. Obviously it changed things for me a lot, especially over here. It doesn't feel very long ago that I was auditioning for lots of things and not getting them. And now it just feels a bit different. People are coming to me to try and get things made or they want to offer me the lead part in something. That is not how my life was before Lucifer and it is now. And so I'm very grateful and mindful of that.

I've gotten older as a person and I want to be a bit more in charge of my own destiny rather than waiting for things to come in. So I ended up producing on Lucifer by the end of it. That's something that I want to continue: getting something before it's even been bought by a network, working with writers and producers, then selling it and moving forward. Not just being the person in front of the camera.

SM: Obviously Lucifer was a game changer but you've worked more or less continuously since drama school...

TE: I was really fortunate. I went from job to job to job. I didn't have any downtime. There was one tiny period early on where I had to subsidise my income. I worked as a receptionist at a doctor's practice in Bristol, where my mum was the practice manager. I did it for four or five months. That's the only time in 25 years that I've had to subsidise.

SM:Your friend Sam Heughan nearly quit acting before landing Outlander in his 30s. Would you have continued to pursue acting if you'd experienced similar struggles early in your career?

TE: That's a tough question. I'm fortunate because I didn't have to reach that crossroads in my life. I've got a lot of friends from drama school who don't do it anymore because they couldn't earn a living out of it. I guess if I'd been in that position, yeah, I would've had to think about doing something else, for sure.

But I not only really wanted it, I felt like it was going to be alright. And it's such a weird thing to say. It doesn't come from a place of arrogance. I don't know if that's a self-motivation, self-confidence thing but there have been a few periods in my life where it's like, 'This feels right.' You are on the right path.

With acting, there are all these hurdles. The first one was, you need to go to drama school. So I wrote to the drama schools, I got auditions at all of them. At that moment in time, I'd not had a lot of nos. My first four auditions were just a hard no. It was really tough.

I went to audition at the Royal Scottish Academy in Glasgow. I got to that place and I thought, 'Today's the day I'm going to do it.' I got to the very end of the day and two weeks later I got the place. That was my first experience of having the negative, the struggle.

You have to get used to rejection if you're going to do it. I had four places where I'd been rejected and I was like, 'Oh, this is really fucking tough'. And I've gone to the other place and I knew it was still tough, but I had this feeling inside of me that it was going to work out and it did. That feeling has carried me through my adult life. Stay in your lane; do your thing; it's all going to be alright.

SM: Has that feeling ever been wrong?

TE: Certainly there have been roles that I've really wanted and it hasn't worked out, but something else comes along. I've learned to move forward quickly. The worst part about the job is the not knowing - doing the audition and waiting. That's the worst part. If you haven't got the job, you can draw a line under it and move forward. And if you've got the job, amazing!

SM: Speaking of jobs, any exciting ones on the horizon?

TE: Yes! I just got offered a part in The Thursday Murder Club, playing Pierce Brosnan's son. They've got an incredible team. Chris Columbus is directing it. You have the likes of Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie, Sir Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Naomi Ackie - and me! It's like a bucket list of all the people I've ever wanted to work with.

SM: Any update on the release date for Washington Black?

TE: That I don't have an answer to. It might not even be until next year. The strike messed things up in post for them.

SM: Did your co-star Charles Dance remember you from Nicholas Nickleby? [Dance and a young Ellis both appeared in the 2001 Dickens adaptation.]

TE: No! I said, 'Charles, I've worked with you before.' And he went, 'Have we?' I love Charles to pieces. He seems so intimidating but he's a teddy bear underneath and really quite funny. I developed an impression of him while I was doing Washington Black and I got asked to do Exploding Kittens straight afterwards. So my God Cat voice is very similar to my Charles Dance impression! He's saved in my phone as Sir Dance A Lot.

SM: What has surprised you most about your career to date?

TE: How little theatre I've done. Let's be fair, it doesn't pay a lot of money so it's got to work logistically as well. But I'm definitely going to do some theatre in the next two years. I have a burning ambition to do something quintessentially British in New York. Noël Coward or The Importance of Being Earnest. So I'm putting it out there into the universe. Before I left drama school, it's all I'd done. I had never worked in front of a camera and I thought that I'd probably end up doing a lot of theatre.

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SM: Do you worry about the future of the industry? Box office is down, streaming services are losing subscribers...

TE: I think the tide is changing slightly. The strikes last year finally acknowledged that streaming is a very different animal and everything contractual needs to be updated. The actors and the writers got better deals while studios have the same money as before and so not as many things are going to be made. They will always continue to make things but not as many things. I worry for people who haven't established themselves yet and don't have a foothold in the industry. Since the strikes, I think a lot of people have found it really difficult to find work and are having to either subsidise or stop altogether.

I don't know if it's going to be like that forever. Certainly in the States now, they are going back to pilots. Rather than commission a whole season, they'll get scripts, you'll make a pilot, and then they can make a decision based on the pilot as to whether they will invest more long term.

I don't know if that's necessarily good or bad, but that's come around as an outcome. But I don't worry about the industry. People will always want to be entertained. Obviously there are different ways of entertaining these people. You've got YouTube and TikTok and all those things as well. But people will still want stories and we will still be making stories. The business behind it is always going to shift with the times. At the moment, it feels a bit tough, actually. There's not a lot of stuff going on but maybe in two years' time we'll be having a different conversation.

SM: And do you worry about the future of your adopted country?

TE: November will be telling. I'd like to think that even with all the noise and the bluster, there's no world in which Trump gets reelected. I hope he's imprisoned, to be honest. I do worry for the future of this country if he gets back in. I do.

SM: Would you stay?

TE: That's a really tough question. He would only do four years - unless he changes the rules while he is in power. That would be a really serious conversation for us to have. And it's something we have talked about before.

The sad truth is that Joe Biden's a great politician and has been for a long, long time. [Our interview took place before Biden pulled out of the race.] But he's obviously very old - as is Trump. It's sad for the country that those are the two options, especially when you think about the energy that Obama brought.

SM: Have you met Obama? I know he is a hero of yours.

TE: I haven't actually, no. One day. One day for sure.

SM: Manifest it! Tom, it was a pleasure.

TE: Thanks, mate. Take care!