Good Omens star David Tennant praises fellow Doctor Who actor Ncuti Gatwa believing he will excel in his role as the eponymous Time Lord.
Good Omens star David Tennant has described the new Doctor Who lead Ncuti Gatwa as a force of nature.
Speaking with Variety, Tennant, who has appeared in projects such as Casanova, Harry Porter and the Goblet of Fire, Broadchurch, and Jessica Jones, praised Gatwa. “Oh God, what a force of nature. I’ve caught a little bit of him at work, and it’s pretty exciting,” he said. Gatwa will star as the next Doctor, a role that made Tennant famous. The actor added, “I mean what advice would you give someone? You can see Ncuti has so much talent and energy. He’s so inspired and charismatic. The thing about something like this is it’s the peripherals, it’s not the job. It’s other stuff that comes with it, that I didn’t see coming. It’s a show that has so much focus and enthusiasm on it. It’s not like Ncuti [hasn’t] been in a massive Netflix series but Doctor Who is on a slightly different level. It’s cross-generational, international, and has so much history, that it feels like it belongs to everyone.”
Gatwa (Sex Education, Barbie) will be the fifteenth Doctor in Doctor Who. Tennant, who now plays the character Crowley on Good Omens, portrayed the tenth and fourteenth incarnations of the Doctor. “To be at the center of the show is wonderful and humbling, but also a bit overwhelming and terrifying. It doesn’t come without some difficulties, such as the immediate loss of anonymity. It takes a bit of getting used to if that’s not been your life up to that point. I was very lucky that when I joined, Billie Piper was still there. She’d lived in the glare of publicity since she was fourteen, so she was a great guide on how to live under that kind of scrutiny. I owe a degree of sanity to Billie,” Tennant explained.
Ncuti Gatwa Has a Personal Connection to Doctor Who
Gatwa, who is a Rwandan-Scottish actor, has talked about his deep personal connection to the character of the Doctor, saying with conviction, “This person survived a genocide. This person fits in everywhere and nowhere. I am the Doctor. The Doctor is me. I decided that I had to get this role.”
The post-2005 storyline of Doctor Who has the titular time lord surviving the decimation of his people, something Gatwa resonates with. “My Doctor is emotionally vulnerable. He hides it with humor, but he’s lonely,” the actor revealed in another interview. Gatwa will return for multiple seasons.
