Neil Gaiman is one of the most influential fantasy writers alive today, having created works like “American Gods” and “The Sandman,” but one book within his extensive catalog holds a special place in fans’ hearts. Co-written with Gaiman’s late friend, Terry Pratchett, “Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter” is a satirical telling of the biblical apocalypse. When it was announced that Gaiman had struck a deal with Amazon to adapt the novel into a miniseries starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen as the demon Crowley and angel Aziraphale, respectively, many fans were fearful that the show wouldn’t do justice to the book. However, Tennant didn’t feel the pressure until close to the show’s release.
Speaking to Variety ahead of the “Good Omens” Season 2 premiere but prior to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, Tennant noted that he hadn’t felt the responsibility of adapting such a beloved book to the screen during the making of the series because he hadn’t yet read it. “I didn’t know the book when I got the script,” he said. “It was only after that I discovered the worlds of passion that this book had incited.” But in the intervening time between shooting Season 1 of “Good Omens” and its premiere, Tennant finally read Gaiman and Pratchett’s Bible farce, which gave him a new sense of responsibility. “At first,” he said, “I didn’t have that extra baggage of expectation, but I acquired it in the run-up to Season 1 being released … the sense that suddenly we were carrying a Ming vase across a minefield.”
Good Omens has a passionate fanbase that David Tennant wanted to do right by
David Tennant broke into public consciousness when he took up the role of the Tenth Doctor on the long-running BBC science-fiction series “Doctor Who.” Since then, he’s been a staple of fandom culture, having appeared in projects like Marvel’s “Jessica Jones,” where he played the manipulative villain Killgrave, and the widely praised detective series “Broadchurch.” So, w hen he joined “Good Omens” to portray Crowley, a grumpy demon with a soft heart, he wasn’t new to embodying a character with a preexisting fan base.
Tennant’s comments about carrying a Ming vase across a minefield ahead of “Good Omens” Season 1 show how he didn’t want to take something people already loved and break it in the process. But luckily for everyone involved, fans of the novel embraced the streaming series enthusiastically. Tennant attributes its success to novel author Neil Gaiman’s close involvement with the project. “I guess we were helped by the fact that we had Neil Gaiman with us, so you couldn’t really quibble too much with the decisions that were being made,” Tennant mused to Variety. “The reception was, and continues to be, overwhelming.”
