The “How I Met Your Mother” star plays the villainous Toymaker on 60th anniversary special episode “The Giggle.”
Call it How Neil Patrick Harris Met Your Favorite British Time Travel Show.
Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies tells EW that the American actor was completely unfamiliar with the beloved science fiction series when the executive producer approached Harris about playing a villain called The Toymaker on this Saturday’s final 60th anniversary special episode, “The Giggle.”
“He’d never heard of it in his life, bless him,” Davies says with a laugh. “I was lucky enough to work with the great man on a show called It’s a Sin, about the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, and working with him was such a joy. The Toymaker, he’s kind of the god of games, so he shuffles cards, he does magic tricks, and all of that fits Neil Patrick Harris. If you go through agents, they often tell you to go away. I was able to send just a text saying, ‘Do you fancy reading this?’ He read it and literally phoned me up going, ‘Let me get this right, so the Doctor’s an alien, right?’ I was like, ‘Oh my god, you really have never heard of Doctor Who!’ But he couldn’t resist it, and he came to Cardiff, and we had the most spectacular time.”
The Toymaker first appeared on the show back in the ’60s, when the character was portrayed by Michael Gough and the Doctor was played by William Hartnell. This time around, Harris’ villain will face off against David Tennant and Catherine Tate, who are reprising their respective roles of the Doctor and Donna Noble for the three anniversary episodes after many years away from the show. Davies explains that, “it’s very hard to find the villain who can match David Tennant and Catherine Tate. To have a character who can be in danger of defeating those two is very hard to find. Sometimes on Doctor Who, you need armies of a thousand robots who could do that. This is just one person, so casting them was absolutely crucial and this becomes a pivotal event in the Doctor’s life. We needed that man, and, god, we had a glorious time. It’s so lovely working with Neil. When I text him now, [we ask], what’s our third project together? We’ve got to keep going!”
Tennant agrees that Davies made the right choice in casting Harris as the episode’s villain.
“Oh, he’s good,” the actor says. “I don’t quite know if he knew what to expect, but he dived in with such gusto and brio. This part requires a lot of skill sets and Neil turns up with them all. I don’t want to give away too much about what might be required of the Toymaker, but you need a sort of an all-round entertainer to play that part and a very good actor, so there aren’t a lot of people who could have ticked all the boxes required. We were really excited when Neil said ‘yes,’ and actually it’s impossible to imagine who else it might have been. He’s a sort of theater animal, so he’s got that bit of graft about him that my Scottish Presbyterian soul rather enjoys being around. And he’s got a twinkle in his eye, which is sort of the combination of elements that you need for Doctor Who, I think.”
