Dame Judi Dench won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Shakespeare in Love (1999) despite appearing on-screen for a mere eight minutes. Alan Arkin took home a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his whopping 14 minutes of screen time in Little Miss Sunshine in 2007. And of course, Sir Anthony Hopkins took home top honors at the 1992 Academy Awards for his brilliantly twisted 16-minute turn as Hannibal Lecter in 1991's Silence of the Lambs. A character can have a huge impact on a story by maximizing their screen time and wrenching every last drop out of their limited time on camera.
In The Devil's Hour, currently streaming on Prime Video, Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who, Suicide Squad) deserves a mention with the aforementioned thespians for his limited but poignant small-screen performance as Gideon Shepherd in the Steven Moffat-executive produced psychological thriller currently trending upwards to both critical and fan acclaim.
Who Is Gideon Shepherd?
The Devil's Hour is a complex blend of drama, romance, science fiction, and the supernatural. Its non-linear storyline jumps forward and then backward, and benefits from the fine performances of its British leads Capaldi, Jessica Raine (Call the Midwife, Partners in Crime) as Child Protective Services director, Lucy Chambers, and Nikesh Patel (Four Weddings and a Funeral) as lead detective Ravi Dhillon.
When the two find themselves baffled by a series of mysterious disappearances and murders, they find themselves face to face in an interrogation room with the eerily mercurial Gideon (Capaldi) handcuffed to the table and wearing a burgundy prison issued jumpsuit. And though he only appears in a handful of scenes throughout the six-part series, when he comes into frame, he demands your attention. The character's mesmerizing storyline of a mysterious wayward drifter suspected of committing horrific crimes is gripping enough, but the way Capaldi taps the most out of the role is superb.
Capaldi Plays a Time Traveler of a Different Sort
Most know Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor in the British science fiction phenomenon, Doctor Who. From 2012 to 2017, his enigmatic take on the time-traveling adventurer was a noteworthy turn, and proof that he's certainly not a newcomer to playing oddball and slightly eccentric characters. In The Devil's Hour, Capaldi really cranks up the creepy as a man who claims to be reliving his life over and over again on an endless loop. Each time Gideon dies and starts the same life anew, he makes takes notes in a journal that will allow him to alter the lives of people's past, present and future.
When he is accused of murder and kidnapping Lucy's son Oscar, Gideon claims to be doing it for the greater good. He maintains that the people he murders are preemptive measures necessary to save the lives of many more good and decent people, and the people he abducts are better off under his protection because he knows that the alternative is much worse. As he sits across the table from Chambers and Detective Dhillion in a dark, cramped interrogation room, his cadence and mannerism draw you in like a moth to a flame. Is he simply a madman? Or will he be able to convince Lucy that his acts are somehow noble, and save lives by eliminating those that will commit heinous acts in the future?
When Detective Dhillion accuses Gideon of being delusional, he asks him if he believes himself to be a time traveler or a fortunate teller, Gideon pauses, and replies, "Neither, I'm both," and when asked if he can see the future he confidently responds, "I don't see it. I remember it." It's his cryptic answers to questions like these that make his presence both enthralling and ominous. The lighting in the darkened room accentuates his cropped white hair and his gaunt, sunken face. It's a simple, yet highly effective tool that director Johnny Allan (The Irregulars) employs in order to enhance and maximize the eeriness of his antagonist's bizarre tales.
Gideon Is a Machiavellian Blend of Compassion and Control
The only things that keep Detective Dhillion and Lucy from lunging across the table and strangling the enigmatic prisoner are the moments Gideon expresses compassion and remorse for the toll his actions have taken on Lucy. As she believes he's abducted her son, he holds all the cards. If she wants to know where he is and why he was taken, she has no choice but to play his game and jump through the psychological hoops that he has constructed. Because each of his answers hold so much weight, it allows him to execute the interviews at his own pace, and while he is sincere in the purpose of his mission, it is at the same time maddening that he doesn't just come clean.
When Gideon does appear on-screen (frequently to try to provide an explanation for his actions at the end of each episode) his presence really packs a visceral punch as he provides both the questions and the answers to the show's biggest queries. Capaldi does all of this while coming across as a most unreliable narrator whose motivation remains unclear no matter how he frames his intent to a skeptical audience. It's a fine piece of acting that ratchets up the tension and constantly serves to propel the story forward. Fans of stories like Silence of the Lambs, Seven, and Prisoners will get a kick from Capaldi's delicious turn as a self-righteous villain who plays tortuous cat-and-mouse games with the leads in The Devil's Hour.
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