Interview: Paul McGann - Dickens and I

The first indication we have of Eugene Wrayburn, Paul McGann's character in the new BBC adaptation of Our Mutual Friend, is a devil-may- care plume of cigar smoke emanating from behind an armchair. The camera then moves round to show a man draped languidly across the cushions, well away from the crowds at a society wedding. It is an image of yawning, nonchalant detachment.

McGann has made a speciality out of such insouciant outsiders. Lying casually on the bed - not unlike Eugene - in his caravan between scenes on Our Mutual Friend, McGann directs me to a book on the sideboard. It is a copy of the great director Michael Powell's memoirs which has been dedicated by his widow, the film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, to McGann, "who knows not to give it all away". "I couldn't have been paid a better compliment," he smiles.

Sporting Eugene's dashing whiskers, dark tartan trousers and opera cape, McGann points up the similarity between this character and other celebrated creations of his: Dr Who, I in Withnail and I, and Private Percy Toplis, aka The Monocled Mutineer. "They're all marginals. What is more interesting is that they're all heroes in their respective stories, yet for audiences they're not the easiest of people. You don't give your allegiance to them easily. They're strange and awkward. The producer of Doctor Who said I had an outsiderish quality. It's not cosy.

"When I was a kid, I loved Dirk Bogarde - why is that? You wouldn't say on the face of it that he would be a child's favourite actor. But I liked him for the poise he had and the time he gave himself, as if he was saying 'It's going to happen anyway, so you don't have to give it away cheap'."

Eugene fits snugly into this canon of enigmatic, disengaged characters. He's the sort of man who relishes lazily sniffing an unlit cigar before putting it in his top pocket. A "resting" barrister, he has turned apathy into an artform, complaining: "How could I possibly undertake matrimony, I am so easily bored, so constantly, so totally?" He sighs that his ambitious father "continually berates me for my lack of energy. But give me something to be energetic about and, by God, I'll show him energy."

That something soon arrives in the shape of Eugene's cataclysmic struggle with the self-made school-teacher, Bradley Headstone (David Morrissey), for the love of the pure boatman's daughter, Lizzie Hexam (Keeley Hawes). But even in this life-or-death battle, Eugene finds it hard to lose his characteristic sense of ironic non-commitment and moral dubiety.

It was Eugene's duality that first drew McGann towards him. "The very ambiguity of the character makes it a plum. In the book and the series, the ambiguity is there for all to see. It was a sign of Dickens's maturity that he went along with it. It's very modern in that Eugene throws up questions that remain unanswered. When you think of Eugene's motives, there are times when he is very close to damnation. It's not crucial that we make him likeable. Eugene isn't cuddly; he's difficult and dubious."

Sandy Welch, the adapter of this commendably dark version of Our Mutual Friend, underlines the equivocal nature that makes Eugene so readily identifiable. "He's such a well-rounded hero. There is something very bold about a main character who does some really awful things. The great thing about Paul is that he doesn't want to be liked all the time. He's not playing Wrayburn for sympathy."

McGann had the same ambiguous approach to the character of Dr Who. When he was first asked to take on the Time Lord mantle, the actor turned it down. "I took months to be persuaded that it would even be a good idea. To throw the producer off the scent, I said, 'This character is dark.' He went 'Bingo'."

He took the part on knowing the enthusiastic nature of the show's fans, or Whovians. When Our Mutual Friend was filming in an Inland Revenue building, an official approached, not to ask about tax returns, but to request an autograph on the pristine copy of the Dr Who video he just happened to have with him. "The Whovians are out there - and I mean that ambiguously," McGann says. "It's weird having all those websites and being part of a dynasty. But I went into it with my eyes open."

McGann can't see himself stepping into the Tardis again, however. "I gave it my best shot. Now I'm going to move over, and someone else will take it on. Lucky them."

The actor was well used to obsessive followings, though; he did, after all, star in one of the cultiest films ever made, Withnail and I. McGann still looks back fondly on Bruce Robinson's deathless picture of late- 1960s self-indulgence. "We've all been there. As every new student intake arrives, they have their year in a shitty bedsit. That's poignant for everyone. We have all met that drug dealer, the guy who coulda been a contender. We've met these characters. London at the time was a country coming down from its trip. Remember that line - 'They're selling hippy wigs in Woolworth's'? Decay is the motif for the film. Like Baudelaire, it's all about rotting."

The crew had tremendous fun making Withnail and I. "If you'd panned five feet either way, you would have seen some technician with his fist in his mouth trying not to ruin the take with his laughter." But Robinson was determined that the cast shouldn't ham it up. "He said rule number one was that 'There are no gags in the film', meaning that if you play it for real, it's going to be hysterical."

An alluring mixture of the articulate and the attractive, McGann is more eye-catching just lounging in an armchair than many actors who leap about shouting "Look at me". But, despite various unwanted brushes with the tabloids, McGann has never lived the life of a star. He is quite happy quietly getting on with things well away from the limelight with his family in Bristol. "I'm relaxed about the press. I value my privacy above all things. I've never been one for the bright lights. I'm not showbiz. Sometimes I wish I was living in Soho, but this is the best way I can think of staying normal and fresh."

Abjuring the first principles of the luvvie cult, he concludes: "Just keep your feet on the ground. Acting is not high-altitude mountaineering, you're never in mortal danger. I still want to be here in 30 or 40 years' time. The idea of digging in for a long career has always appealed."

'Our Mutual Friend', a four-part serial, begins on Monday at 9pm on BBC2