Ncuti Gatwa evidently received a surprising amount of freedom in creating his version of the Doctor for the upcoming new season of Doctor Who.
There aren’t very many roles like the Doctor, where an actor is tasked with making something new while also taking into account decades of history and multiple other actors playing the role. However, showrunner Russell T Davies gave Gatwa a ton of freedom to make this Doctor his own the actor explained during a press conference for the upcoming season, which is landing on Disney+.
“I was trusted very generously by (Davies) … to take the steering wheel when crafting the Doctor,” Gatwa said when asked about how much control he had over his version of the Doctor. “Which I remember being very surprised by. I remember thinking there was a right and a wrong and Russell would know the answer, and he was just like, ‘Do your thing.'”
As noted in our review, that thing is a very different take on the Doctor than we’ve seen in a long while. Gatwa’s Doctor is practically bursting off the screen with joy and life, a far cry from some of the recent spate of Doctors burdened by inner demons and a tortured past. It’s quite the feat to deliver something that feels wholly new to a character who has been around so long, but Gatwa seems to have pulled it off, and it didn’t even come together until he was partnered up with his new companion Ruby, played by Millie Gibson.
“The missing piece of my characterization came when (Gibson) came into the audition room,” Gatwa explained. “I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it all kind of makes sense to me now’.”
Of course, a key part of any Doctor is his signature costume, which often stays the same for a Doctor throughout their run or at least throughout a season. That’s not so for Gatwa’s Doctor, who appears to regularly be wearing different (very stylish) outfits throughout this first season. That will wreak havoc on cosplayers, but it was something that Gatwa had a heavy hand in.
“In terms of costume, again pushed by the producers to explore and be expansive. And we’ve got an incredible costume designer called Pam Downe who just pushes all the boundaries and comes up with the coolest fits that I just select from.”
Doctor Who streams Friday, May 10 at 7:00 p.m. ET on Disney+, where available, and simultaneously on May 11 at midnight on BBC iPlayer in the U.K.
