The enduring popularity of Doctor Who means that being part of its cast is a job for life. Someone who knows that better than most is David Tennant. He handed his sonic screwdriver over to Matt Smith back in 2010, and has since gone on to many other projects, but he’s still beloved by fans as the Tenth Doctor.
The actor was a guest on the latest episode of The Graham Norton Show when the topic of Doctor Who invariably came up. Among other things, Tennant pointed out that despite there being 13 Doctors at this point in the show’s history, the collection of Time Lords is still “quite a small club” and revealed that the actors have formed their own “support network.”
“It’s quite a small club. It does feel like once you’ve been The Doctor, you’re always The Doctor. We do form a small support network.”
The reason for the support network is to help each other navigate the heady world of Doctor Who fandom, which can be notoriously full-on, as people from all sorts of generations have gathered around the series for the past 50 or so years. Tennant admitted to host Graham Norton that receiving the brunt of fans’ attentions when he was starring on the show was also “quite scary at first.”
“It’s quite an unusual job and it’s humbling to be at the centre of that. It has such a huge fan base all over the world that it is quite scary at first.”
As a lifelong Whovian himself, Tennant was probably better prepared for what starring in Doctor Who would be like than most of the actors who take on the coveted part. No doubt he’s also given some advice to incoming Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker, who’s an old friend of his. The actress has only appeared on screen for a minute so far, but we know she’s already met a lot of fans. We just hope she doesn’t find them as scary as the Daleks.
