Ncuti Gatwa is “nervous” but “so ready” for people to see him in “Doctor Who” for the first time on Christmas Day.
The actor feels like he has already been the titular role in the long-running BBC sci-fi series for so long despite his debut coming on Christmas Day but has to “hold off” going into full detail about his time in the role with companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson). The legendary series has writer Russell T. Davies return to the showrunner seat.
“It’s felt like I’ve been the Doctor and also had to hold off from being the Doctor for most of the last two years,” he told Big Issue. “So how do I feel about people seeing it? I feel ready. But I’m sooooo nervous.”
Gatwa added that the return of David Tennant, who played the role between 2006 and 2010 before Matt Smith took over, “a nice little lead-in” before him because he was “a great inspiration” to him as kid dreaming of working as an actor growing up in Scotland.
“A nice little lead-in for me! It feels like it’s come full circle because David was my Doctor and such a great inspiration to me as an actor,” he said. “I would have been 13, a pivotal time. And firstly, he’s Scottish. Plus, he was so charismatic and fun — I mean, all the Doctors have been fun, all the way back.”
“Well, I don’t know if you can say that about William Hartnell. Maybe he wasn’t fun,” Gatwa said. “But David had such a Scottish — almost feral-ness — to him, which is what I liked. I felt an affinity to that. So, for him, of all people, to be handing the baton over — it just feels really surreal.”
The former “Sex Education” star also gushed about Big Issue allowing him to write a guest essay about homelessness back in 2020 because he knows it “can happen to anyone.” The publication seeks to help people experiencing homelessness to get back on their feet.
“I’m constantly trying to find a balance of how to be open and how to be private. But with that particular issue, I always wanted to speak out about it. Because I wanted it to be quite clear that it can happen to anyone,” Gatwa said. “A majority of people are one bad incident or one bad paycheck away from a really drastic situation. To this day, I still wake up and check my bank balance and that there’s food in my fridge. And that’s because of that brief period where I was struggling.”
