Although presented as an unknown by the press, the young Matt Smith had a fair track record our screens before taking the role of the Eleventh Doctor.

Post-Doctor Who, he has already started to make waves in Hollywood. Following last year’s Terminator movie with Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) and Ryan Gosling’s Lost River, the 33-year-old actor now has Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Patient Zero, Mapplethorpe and Netflix’s The Crown series coming up.

With a huge 2016 ahead of him, let’s celebrate some of Matt Smith’s best roles beyond the TARDIS…

 

The Ruby in the Smoke & The Shadow in the North (2006 & 2007)

Based on the Victorian-set Phillip Pullman novels surrounding the exploits of Sally Lockhart, Smith plays cheeky Cockney chappie Jim Taylor, a lowly clerk who befriends Sally after the death of her father.

Adapted by Adrian Hodges (The Musketeers) for BBC One and featuring Billie Piper in the lead role post-Doctor Who, these two films were shown as festive treats and also featured Hayley Atwell in the supporting cast.

 

Christopher and his Kind (2011)

Smith stars as the titular Christopher, in this case Christopher Isherwood, author of The Berlin Stories from which the musical Cabaret was adapted.

Taking place in the German capital under Nazi rule, the 90-minute drama – directed by Doctor Who: The Movie‘s Geoffrey Sax – traces Isherwood’s doomed romance with a street sweeper and his friendship with Jean Ross (Imogen Poots), who inspired the famous character of Sally Bowles.

 

Clone (2010)

Filmed just before he won the role of the Doctor, Clone (aka Womb) is set in a world only a step ahead of our own where human cloning is a possibility. Smith stars as Thomas, a clone birthed by his lover Rebecca (Penny Dreadful star Eva Green) after the original dies.

It is a bleak and emotionally disturbing film which provokes questions about grief and the role technology might play in our future covering similar ground to Black Mirror’s excellent ‘Be Right Back’.

 

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