Doctor Who star and the actress behind the current incarnation of the titular character, Jodie Whittaker, has recently discussed her fears going into the iconic role and taking up the mantle after Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor.
Owing to the spectacular performance of her predecessors, the Broadchurch lead must have felt a ton of pressure taking over from the Magician. Not only did the BBC have a lot of money riding on the success of the reboot, which featured her as the first female actor in history to tackle the challenging role, but she also had to win the fandom over, and that’s no easy task.
Of course, two seasons into her tenure as the Thirteenth Doctor, we already know that Jodie succeeded at this and even managed to outshine the former iterations in certain areas. Nevertheless, it appears that the burden of becoming the next in the line of many as the Last of the Time Lords took its toll on her confidence. The British thespian was recently a guest on BBC Radio 6’s Finest Hour, where she explained what it was like to second guess her own acting style after watching Capaldi’s performance.
When asked about what she thought of her work, here’s what she shared:
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve done it wrong. I’ve done it wrong’ and we were only like six weeks in and I had seven months left,” she said. “I came in to work I was like, ‘You should have told me, I’ve been doing it wrong!'”
This realization apparently hit her hard, but thanks to Chris Chibnall, who’s serving as the current executive producer, Jodie learned that that wasn’t the case at all, with the actress explaining the following:
“He was very clear that he wanted me to come in with a very fresh perspective and to not necessarily sit at the beginning and work through the entire thing, because his vision was that I came in with a new energy for that.”
At the moment, Jodie Whittaker and the rest of the cast are filming their upcoming third outing on Doctor Who, which will also be their most ambitious undertaking yet. And given everything we know about it so far, it seems like the fans are in for a real treat with it.
