Michelle Gomez was too… 

When a certain tabloid – which shall remain nameless – decided to spoil the reveal of John Simm’s return to the role of The Master in series 10 of Doctor Who, it reduced some of the impact of the news. Apparently, Stephen Moffat had expressed a wish that the secret be kept until the ‘Next Time’ trailer at the end of ‘The Pilot’ aired on the BBC. That was not to be the case, unfortunately. It was still a big talking point, though.

Imagine, though, how much of a surprise it was for Michelle Gomez to find out that she would be sharing The Master role. Then consider how much of a surprise it would be for her to find that out as she was performing in the read-through of the script.

Well, while speaking to Radio Times, the actress revealed that that’s exactly how she found out.

While we confidently expect to see the return of Missy in episode 6 of the season, ‘Extremis’, when we will see Simm is still unclear. Gomez tells us that we’re “going to find out that everything that happens is all a bit odd,” in terms of the events that lead up to Simm’s reappearance – so odd, in fact, that she didn’t see it coming, even when the actor himself sitting next to her.

She says she was ignorant of the plot “because I hadn’t read the script” when they sat down together for the first read-through, saying she’d hoped to “enjoy it all unfolding as we all get together.”

The penny still didn’t drop straight away, though. “It didn’t even register,” she says, “I thought ‘Oh it’s John, it’s nice to see John’.”

In what sounds like a great advert for what’s to come, she then “started shrieking at things, as various events unfolded in that episode.”

To be honest, we don’t think she’ll be the only one doing that over the next few weeks, thanks to Moffat, who Gomez reckons “always pulls the rug from under your feet.”