10 Famous Actors You Completely Forgot Were In Doctor Who

Not only is Doctor Who one of the most famous shows in the world, but it also offers a fun, fantasy experience unlike most other things on television. That must be why the series is able to attract such high calibre talent to appear in any capacity from a main role to a minor walk-on part. For instance, the late, great John Hurt jumped at the chance to play a one-off version of the Doctor in the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor." On the other hand, it's also a great job for a rising star as it serves as such a big boost to your resume. Just look at the success that the likes of David Tennant, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and others have found thanks to playing leads on the show. Even supporting players have gone on to bigger things, too. Just look at James Corden, who appeared in a few episodes from 2010 to 2011. But these are just a few of the more memorable examples. With the nature of Doctor Who meaning it has a fresh cast every week, it's easy to forget which stars have shown up over the years. Some of them might even have been unrecognizable as they were hidden behind prosthetics or CGI as some alien nasty. With that in mind, here are 10 actors you may be surprised to hear have crossed paths with the TARDIS. Carey Mulligan OK, here's one that hardcore Whovians will know about, but casual viewers may have forgotten entirely. Whatever your Doctor Who credentials, you'll probably remember 2007's "Blink," the episode that introduced the terrifying Weeping Angels for the first time. It's also known for being a rare "Doctor-lite" episode, as David Tennant's Time Lord hardly features. Instead, the protagonist of the episode is Sally Sparrow, as played by future Hollywood star Carey Mulligan. At this point in her career, the actress had appeared in movies like 2003's Pride & Prejudice but she was two years away from her big break in Tinseltown - 2009's An Education, for which she earned herself an Academy Award nomination. Because the episode and the character of Sally proved such a success, showrunner Steven Moffat later revealed that the production team asked if she wished to stay on as a full-time companion. However, the rising star said no. I guess Doctor Who's loss is Hollywood's gain. David Harewood Actor David Harewood has been a familiar face on British TV for a while but he's managed to carve himself out a successful career across the Atlantic this decade, too, as fans may know him from his role as CIA agent David Estes in the first couple of seasons of Homeland and for currently playing Martian Manhunter on Supergirl. Jump back to Christmas 2009, though, and Harewood made a guest appearance in Doctor Who - and it happened to be in one of the show's most significant stories. Harewood showed up in David Tennant's two-part swansong "The End of Time." He played minor antagonist Joshua Naismith, a greedy billionaire who sought to use the Master's genius in order to get a powerful device called the Immortality Gate up and running. Of course, the Master tricked him and used the device for his own ends. In more recent years, Harewood has been linked to the role of the Doctor himself. When asked about who he thought the Thirteenth Doctor should be last year, he correctly guessed that the part would go to a black person or a woman (it went to Jodie Whittaker). Timothy Dalton Yes, James Bond and Doctor Who have crossed over! Well, kind of. Also appearing alongside Harewood in "The End of Time" was two-time 007 actor Timothy Dalton, who played the super-spy in both 1987's The Living Daylights and 1989's Licence to Kill. Fast forward twenty years, though, and Dalton played the corrupt Time Lord President Rassilon, a power-mad tyrant who was willing to destroy any planet in his path in order to win the Time War against the Daleks. Sadly, when the character returned in 2015's "Hell Bent," Dalton proved unavailable and the part was handed down to Donald Sumpter. We're not sure if this was the thinking behind his casting, but James Bond fans have long had a tongue-in-cheek theory that he's actually a Time Lord, hence his ability to change his face and be played by different actors. Thanks to Dalton's casting in Doctor Who, it's actually true. David Morrissey David Morrisey has achieved international renown for his turn as the Governor on The Walking Dead. Despite only appearing in 19 episodes from 2012-15, Morrisey was part of the zombie drama at the peak of its success and his terrific performance ensured that his character is still often called the greatest villain the show's ever had. On Doctor Who, however, Morrisey got to try his hand at lighter fare - though he played a role that appeared to be hugely important to the show's mythology. In 2008's Christmas special "The Next Doctor," David Tennant's Time Lord encountered a man in Victorian London who claimed to be a future version of him! However, it turned out that he was really just a confused human named Jackson Lake. As he played a would-be Doctor on the series, Morrisey is another actor who has been frequently linked with taking the main role in the years since. While that's probably not on the cards due to his busy career, he has said he would love to return to the show in some capacity. Michael Sheen Michael Sheen is one of those actors who has managed to balance a career as both an awards darling in critically-acclaimed films and a supporting character actor in Hollywood blockbusters. Some of his most famous roles include The Queen, Underworld, Twilight and TRON: Legacy. If you don't recognize him from Doctor Who though, that's fair enough. Sheen appeared in 2011's "The Doctor's Wife" as the voice of House, the villain of the episode - a sentient planet who wanted to feast on the powerful time energy of the TARDIS. In fact, it's easy to miss that it's Sheen at all, as his voice is heavily modulated. The actor appeared in the episode as a favour to his good friend Neil Gaiman, the cult favourite writer who made his Doctor Who debut with that installment. Sheen will also be reuniting with Gaiman - and former Doctor David Tennant - for Amazon's upcoming Good Omens TV series, which is now in production. Bill Nighy Sheen's Underworld co-star Bill Nighy has also appeared in Doctor Who under similar circumstances. Nighy is known for his frequent collaboration with Richard Curtis, often appearing in his romcoms such as Love Actually and About Time. So, when Curtis wrote an episode of the sci-fi series in 2010, naturally the actor dropped by for a cameo. In "Vincent and the Doctor," Matt Smith's Doctor and Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) take Vincent Van Gogh (Tony Curran) to the future to see his work in an art gallery, to prove that he'll be appreciated by the world at large. The curator of the gallery is Nighy's Dr. Black, a man after the Doctor's own heart due to their mutual love of bow ties. After his appearance in the show, the actor dropped the bombshell that he had been offered the lead role at one point in the 2000s. He turned it down, however, as he thought the part came with "too much baggage." Simon Pegg And Nick Frost Simon Pegg is a veritable geek icon thanks to his roles in Star Trek, Mission: Impossible and, of course, his "Cornetto trilogy" of comedy genre movies - Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End. It's often forgotten, though, that he's also ticked off two other sci-fi juggernauts in Star Wars and Doctor Who. Back in 2005, Pegg appeared in "The Long Game" as the Editor, the sinister albino assistant to a giant slug-like monster that was secretly controlling all of the Earth's media. Many years later, Pegg's frequent on-screen best bud Nick Frost also appeared in the show. In 2014's "Last Christmas," Frost played none other than Santa Claus in an Inception-like Christmas special that saw Peter Capaldi's Doctor trapped in a dream world set at the North Pole (hence the inclusion of St. Nick). The end of the episode left it ambiguous whether Santa really exists in the Doctor Who universe or not, so Frost could theoretically return at some point. Felicity Jones 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story introduced us to Jyn Erso, the Rebel fighter who gave her life to provide the Alliance with the means to destroy the Death Star. But, several years earlier, actress Felicity Jones played a much less heroic character in an episode of Doctor Who. In 2007's "The Unicorn and the Wasp," the sci-fi show did a take-off on Agatha Christie-type murder mysteries. Jones played Lady Robina Redmond, an aristocrat who turned out to be a cockney jewel thief known as the Unicorn. It was a light-hearted part and worlds away from the sort of roles she would become known for in Hollywood (see: her Oscar-nominated turn in 2014's The Theory of Everything). Funnily enough though, one of Jones' credits after leaving Doctor Who was The Amazing Spider-Man 2, where she played Felicia Hardy. A superhero movie that happens to star another alumn of the sci-fi show... Andrew Garfield That's right, Spider-Man has met the Doctor! Before Hollywood beckoned and he donned Peter Parker's red and blue tights in The Amazing Spider-Man movies, Andrew Garfield appeared in a two-part Doctor Who story back in 2007. He even got to face off against the Daleks. In "Daleks In Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks," the TARDIS lands in 1930s New York where Tennant's Doctor meets Frank, a young handsome Texan played by Garfield who helps him foil a scheme by his old enemies to rebuild the Dalek race from underneath the newly-built Empire State Building. Despite being a Brit, Garfield had the best American accent on show in the episode, proving himself capable of playing, say, a New Yorker teen in some Marvel superhero franchise... Ian McKellen Ian McKellen is not just a legend of Shakespearean theatre, but a sci-fi/fantasy icon thanks to his role in not one but two major franchises. He's the one and only Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies, plus he shares the role of Magneto with Michael Fassbender in the X-Men universe. What we bet you didn't know, however, was that Ian McKellen has also featured in Doctor Who. What makes us so sure you didn't know this is that McKellen had a voice-only role in an episode from a few years back. 2012's Christmas special "The Snowmen" saw the actor lend his iconic tones to the Great Intelligence, a snow-based entity that created an army of killer snowmen foot soldiers in order to take over the world. Though the villain later became the big bad of season 7, the role was taken over by Richard E. Grant in subsequent appearances. This isn't McKellen's only brush with Doctor Who, though. In 2013, past Doctors Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy got together to make a fun comedy special to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary. It was filled with famous faces, including a cameo from McKellen in full costume as Gandalf, filmed on the set of The Hobbit in New Zealand.