CultBox was lucky enough to pop down to Cardiff earlier this summer for a tour around the Doctor Who set and an interview with new star Peter Capaldi.
Here are 10 things we learned from our chat…
He feels like he has the world’s best job
“I can’t really believe that I’m so lucky – it’s a treat. Sometimes I can’t get to sleep at night because I’m excited about what we’re going to do the next day. You get to work with such amazingly talented people. It’s a constantly stimulating environment.
“I just always feel slightly guilty that I’m allowed so much fun at this point in my life. It’s very challenging, there’s a lot of it to do, but it’s the best gig in the world.”
He totally geeks out at work
“My love for the show is very sincere and so it’s a very unusual story to happen that someone who’s so into it would end up playing this role – such an unlikely event that I never considered it happening myself. There are things I get excited about that only a fan could get excited about.”
He knows his stuff
“The nice thing is they don’t have to talk to me very much about any backstory! I know where I am most of the time.”
He regrets binning his Doctor Who collection
“I had a huge collection of wonderful stuff which – as happens when you’re about 17 or 18 – you decide to move on, you go out into the world and discover sex and drugs and rock and roll… and I’m ashamed to say I destroyed all of my collection!
“It wasn’t specifically Doctor Who stuff, I was quite a major geek, with regards to telly generally. I had a huge collection of autographs… but mostly Doctor Who – and I just threw them all away! I just thought, ‘I’m passed this now, I’m into new wave music and having lager and curries and going to art school, I’m not part of that anymore.’ So that was silly, wasn’t it?!”
He loves nu-Who just as much as the classic series
“I was very excited when it came back [in 2005], it was wonderful. I was thrilled, loved it. I think Chris Eccleston and David and Matt, they’ve all been fantastic Doctors and I just love what they’ve done with it all. I never thought I’d end up in this particular seat!”
He didn’t let what previous actors have done define his Doctor
“You don’t look at other people and say ‘oh they did that, I can’t do that’. You just bring yourself to it. That’s all that actors do really, they just turn up and be themselves! I never think ‘oh Matt did that’ or ‘David did that’. Sometimes there are consciously written in echoes of other Doctors and I love those.”
The new Doctor’s character will evolve over time
“At the end of the day, it’s a new Doctor, and it’s not just my creation. It’s Steven [Moffat], who has such fantastic ideas about Doctor Who and about the Doctor. So my job is to hopefully effectively portray the Doctor he’s written. It’s an organic process as well, so the more we do, the more we see what works and what doesn’t.”
Everyone was really welcoming
“They’re all great. Jenna’s just fabulous, she makes me laugh all the time, I think she’s just brilliant in the part. She helped me enormously.
“It’s a weird situation. You’re stepping into someone else’s workplace but you’re the leading character. So you’re not quite sure how to play that properly, but Jenna made it very easy. I miss Jenna when she’s not here.”
Clara and the Doctor’s dynamic will feel very different
“I was very worried that we got it right between the Doctor and Clara. I’m pleased with what’s happened. It’s a very amusing and sometimes quite sad relationship, which is good, I think.”
Prepare to hide behind the sofa again
“I think it’s scary – I think there’s scarier things in it than there’s been before. Sometimes the episodes are creepier than perhaps we’ve seen for a while.”
Series 8 begins at 7.50pm on Saturday 23 August on BBC One with ‘Deep Breath’.
> Here’s everything we know so far about Series 8.
What are your hopes for Peter Capaldi’s Doctor? Let us know below…