“I Was Working With a Sack Full of Puppies”: Alex Kingston Explains How Matt Smith’s ‘Doctor Who’ Years Evolved

With more than 60 years of history behind a science fiction franchise like Doctor Who, tons of actors have poured their blood, sweat, and tears into making the world come to life. Between the years of 2010 and 2014, those actors were usually Matt Smith (House of the Dragon), Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy), Arthur Darvill (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow), Alex Kingston (A Discovery of Witches), and Jenna Coleman (The Jetty). Smith portrayed the Eleventh Doctor with Gillan and Darvill, playing a married couple, companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams, affectionately nicknamed ‘The Ponds.’ Kingston reprised her role as Professor River Song throughout Smith’s tenure and Coleman was the Eleventh Doctor’s final companion, Clara Oswald. This weekend, during a panel at MegaCon in Orlando, Florida, moderated by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, Kingston reflected on how the cast evolved during Matt Smith’s time as the Eleventh Doctor, even if it was chaotic at times. She told the audience:

“I was living in the states in the Matt Smith years, and so I would come back into England to do one of the episodes. And I’d be asked to come along and join in, and it was really great because every time I joined in… the group, which was Matt, Karen [Gillan] and Arthur [Darvill] had sort of bonded more and had become more confident in themselves and in their relationships and everything, which was so lovely to see.”

Kingston’s guest appearances took place mostly during Seasons 5 and 6. At the end of Season 4, David Tennant’s Doctor regenerated — with Tennant leaving the series, that’s where Smith’s Doctor came in. Kingston says of that time, “I mean, particularly for Matt, he was, you know, having to fill some very, very big shoes [to fill], in having the baton passed on to him from David Tennant, and so you know there was a lot of pressure on them all to be as good if not better.” The actress, also known for her role as Dr. Elizabeth Corday on ER says, “it was sort of stressful to begin with, but then each time I came back they were so much better and having such a good time. And it was like… towards, I mean, I’d say a couple of years in, it was literally… I felt like I was working with a sack full of puppies.”

Kingston Says Her ‘Doctor Who’ Experience Unlike Any Other

At the comparison to “a sack full of puppies,” the crowd erupted in a chorus of laughter, derailing the panel for a solid thirty seconds. Kingston, ever the comedian, goes on to say, “They [Smith, Gillan, and Darvill] were… you were mental you guys… it was like the Rolling Stones or something. You never went to bed.” Kingston explains that the work environment was something she’d never experienced before. “It was just nuts,” She says. “I mean I felt like I was sort of trying to be Mary Poppins… keeping it all together. You were so unprofessional but having such a good time. And don’t even get me started on the press tour in New York,” — if you know, you know.

“It was a lot of fun, but it was also actually you, you were having a blast. You were absolutely having a blast, but it was not the… it wasn’t the normal way that I had ever sort of worked with before.” At the end of Kingston’s story, Darvill, one of the other members of the Matt Smith years in attendance, very cheekily defended himself saying, “I could never do it now.”

If this has you in the mood to rewatch Matt Smith’s years of Doctor Who, specifically with the Ponds, Seasons 1-13 of Doctor Who are available to stream now on Max. Stay with Collider for the latest updates.