David Tennant

David Tennant
Birth date:	18 April 1971 (age 39) Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland
Work in the DWU
Main roles:	Tenth Doctor

David Tennant is the tenth actor to portray the Doctor, assuming the role from Christopher Eccleston at the conclusion of DW: The Parting of the Ways. He made his final regular appearance in the role in DW: The End of Time, a special two-part story that concluded on New Year's Day 2010.

Biography

Before Doctor Who

David grew up in Ralston, Renfrewshire, where his father was the local minister, and later Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. At the age of three, David told his parents that he wanted to become an actor, largely because of his early enjoyment of Doctor Who. Although such an aspiration might have been common for a Scottish child of the 1970s, Tennant says he was "absurdly single-minded" in pursuing his goal. He adopted the professional name "Tennant" — inspired by Neil Tennant, the lead singer of the Pet Shop Boys — because the actors' union Equity already had a David McDonald on their books.

Moving to London in the early 1990s, Tennant lodged with comic actress and writer Arabella Weir, with whom he became close friends and later godfather to one of her children. He later appeared as a guest in her spoof television series Posh Nosh. Tennant began his career in the British theatre, frequently performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company for whom he specialised in comic roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It, Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors and Captain Jack Absolute in The Rivals, although he also played the tragic role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet.

He has appeared in several high-profile dramas for the BBC, including Takin Over The Asylum (1994) a six part BBC Scotland serial in which he played a manic depressive named Campbell, He Knew He Was Right (2004), Blackpool (2004), Casanova (2005) and The Quatermass Experiment (2005). In film, he has appeared in Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things, and as Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, alongside Roger Lloyd Pack who played John Lumic in Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel, and Michael Gambon. One of his earliest big screen roles was in Jude (1996), in which he shared a scene with his Doctor Who predecessor Christopher Eccleston, playing a drunken undergraduate who challenges Eccleston's Jude to prove his intellect.

He has lent his voice to several supporting characters in Big Finish audio plays based on the 1963 version of Doctor Who. He was also a minor participant to the first "official" Ninth Doctor story, the BBC animated webcast Scream of the Shalka. Not originally cast in the production, Tennant happened to be recording a radio play in a neighbouring studio and, when he discovered what was being recorded next door, managed to convince the director to give him a small role. He also played the title role in Big Finish's adaptation of Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (2005).

Doctor Who

Tennant's name was put forward as a possible candidate to take on the role of the Ninth Doctor for the new series that began in March 2005, although the role eventually went to Christopher Eccleston, though he was considered for a part in The Unquiet Dead as the character Gabriel Sneed. He did get a chance to have a peripheral connection to the series when he narrated a prelude episode of Doctor Who Confidential that aired prior to the broadcast of DW: Rose.

With Eccleston's announcement on 30 March that he would not be returning for a second series, the BBC confirmed Tennant as his replacement in a press release on 16 April. He made his first, brief appearance in the episode The Parting of the Ways (2005) after the regeneration scene, and also appeared in a special 7-minute mini-episode shown as part of the 2005 Children in Need appeal, broadcast on 18 November 2005 (coincidentally the same day Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was released to theatres). While Eccleston holds the distinction of being the first man to play the Doctor not even born when the series premiered, Tennant is the first Doctor who was not even conceived, as Eccleston was born during the first season.

Tennant began filming the new series of Doctor Who in late July 2005. His first full-length outing as the Doctor was a 60-minute special, The Christmas Invasion, which was broadcast on Christmas Day 2005, and followed by Attack of the Graske, a special interactive story available to BBC Red Button subscribers. He was also seen in early December in the ITV drama Secret Smile. In December 2005, The Stage newspaper listed Tennant at #6 in its "Top Ten" listing of the most influential UK television artists of the year, citing his roles in Blackpool, Casanova, Secret Smile and Doctor Who.

Unlike his predecessor, Christopher Eccleston, who confessed to having only a passing interest in the 1963 version of Doctor Who, Tennant is a long time fan of the series, and has exhibited extensive knowledge of its history and trivia in interviews, podcasts and DVD commentaries. In March 2009 he gave a demonstration of his knowledge of the franchise during a mock edition of Mastermind for the BBC's Comic Relief Red Nose Day telethon. He has often expressed enthusiasm about fulfilling his childhood dream. He remarked to an interviewer for GWR FM, "Who wouldn't want to be the Doctor? I've even got my own TARDIS!" Like Peter Davison before him, Tennant was knowledgeable enough about the program to ask for his character to be credited as "The Doctor" instead of "Doctor Who", as had been done during Eccleston's tenure. Along with Colin Baker, he also has the distinction of being the only Doctor actor to provide DVD commentary for another Doctor's story when he recorded a special "Easter egg" commentary for the DVD Special Edition release of DW: The Five Doctors.

Outside the TV series itself, Tennant is a ubiquitous presence on various ancillary productions related to Doctor Who, and it is not inaccurate to suggest he might be one of the most accessible actors to ever play the Doctor. He has regularly appeared in Doctor Who Confidential — a program for which he also notably picked up his first television directing credit, the episode "Do You Remember the First Time?" - and in fact has conducted a number of the interviews for the program himself. He was the narrator for Doctor Who: A New Dimension, the effective pilot for Confidential, and an occasional guest on Totally Doctor Who. He also recorded extensive behind the scenes video diaries of his work on Doctor Who, which became highlights of the Series 2 and 3 DVD box sets. On some of the Series 3-related video diaries he recruited his then-girlfriend Sophia Myles to handle the camera. He only recorded two for the Series 4 set, but recorded more for the 2009 Specials DVD Box Set, released in early 2010, relating to his final episodes. He has provided various video content for both the BBC's Doctor Who website, mainly in the form of short question-and-answer sessions. He has also taken part in licensed spin-off productions, recording audio-book readings of several BBC Books novels, as well as narrating several original audio books for BBC Audiobooks.

Technically speaking, Tennant has actually played four roles in the televised Doctor Who: The tenth incarnation of the Doctor, Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17 when she briefly takes over the Doctor's body (DW: New Earth), John Smith who may be technically the Doctor but is depicted in the episodes Human Nature and The Family of Blood as a completely different personality, and most recently a clone of the Doctor, referred to as the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor.

He has also parodied the Doctor on several occasions, such as in a Comic Relief skit with future companion Catherine Tate, a Dead Ringers skit in which he portrayed a "regenerated" Tony Blair, and as the Doctor himself in the final episode of Extras. His guest appearances on general entertainment programmes like The Friday Night Project and Jonathan Ross have also usually contained elements of Doctor Who parody.

In January 2006, Tennant took a one-day break from shooting Doctor Who to play Richard Hoggart in a dramatisation of the 1960 Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial. Written by Andrew Davies and directed by Doctor Who's James Hawes for digital television channel BBC Four, Hoggart's son Simon Hoggart praised Tennant's portrayal in the drama in The Guardian newspaper. "[E]xtremely convincing — the suit, the hair, the Yorkshire accent, and trickiest of all, the speech rhythms. The only thing wrong is his sideburns. To do this film he had to take 24 hours off from making Doctor Who in Cardiff and, as he explained, the sideburns wouldn't grow back in a day."

Also in January 2006, readers of the British gay and lesbian newspaper The Pink Paper voted Tennant the "Sexiest Man in the Universe" over David Beckham and Brad Pitt. Tennant has also on several occasions unseated perennial favourite Tom Baker in the "Favourite Doctor" category in recent polls conducted by Doctor Who Magazine.

In 2007 it was announced that, rather than air a full season in 2009, a series of specials would instead be broadcast, with the series returning as a weekly offering in 2010. This led to Tennant signing on to star in a production of Hamlet, opposite Patrick Stewart. In 2008 rumours began circulating as to whether Tennant would continue in Doctor Who. This was finally confirmed in October 2008 when Tennant, upon winning the 2008 National Television Award for favourite actor, announced that he would be leaving Doctor Who after the 2009 specials. It was subsequently announced that 26-year old Matt Smith would take on the role from 2010.

Tennant spent the last part of 2008 preparing to play Hamlet, although his run was interrupted due to a long-standing back injury. By January 2009 he had recovered and commenced filming the first of his final four special episodes. It was subsequently announced that Tennant would recreate his stage performance as Hamlet for a planned television broadcast/theatrical release.

Tennant filmed his final scenes for Doctor Who as the Doctor on 21 May 2009, and gave an emotional farewell to cast and crew that was captured for both Doctor Who Confidential and Tennant's own Video Diaries DVD supplement. Despite the emotion of the moment, Tennant noted in his Video Diaries that his final scene - a green screen shot - made it less emotional for him than his regeneration scene ,which had actually been filmed a week earlier. Also, the day after bidding farewell to Doctor Who, Tennant briefly reprised the role to film a series of short holiday-themed promos for BBC One. It was later announced he would play the role one last time in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith], a two-part episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Tennant also signed up to voice the Doctor for a second animated serial, Dreamland, which aired in late 2009, and continued to record original audio adventures for BBC Audio, the last of which was released in March 2010. He also appeared, as himself, in a Doctor Who skit involving John Barrowman broadcast during the series Tonight's the Night.

In the summer of 2009, Tennant became the first lead actor from Doctor Who to appear at the San Diego Comic Con.

Despite his final appearance in Doctor Who concluding in the New Year's Day 2010 episode, Tennant appeared in the subsequent episode, Matt Smith's first full episode as the Doctor, The Eleventh Hour, which featured a sequence of "flashback" clips showing all previous Doctors.

During his time as the Doctor, Tennant also guest-hosted and guest-starred on many other BBC programs. He was featured on Top Gear, where he was discovered to be .7 seconds slower on the racetrack than Billie Piper, though he claimed that she cut corners, and also that he had problems with the 3rd gear of manual transmission. He was a guest on Ready, Steady, Cook, in which he competed with his father, Sandy. He was a contestant on a Christmas episode of QI, where his theme song was "Last Christmas" by Wham! and he co-hosted Comic Relief 2009 alongside Davina McCall. He was a guest host on Friday Night Project on two occasions, one opposite Freema Agyeman, and hosted a special Christmas edition of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, which featured fellow Doctor Who actors Catherine Tate and Bernard Cribbins, during which he revealed that he is a fan of Coldplay.

After Doctor Who

Tennant's first post-Who assignment was to film a movie version of his Hamlet performance opposite Patrick Stewart. This aired on BBC Two on 26 December 2009, the day after the first part of The End of Time, Tennant's last appearance, aired, and on American network PBS on 28 April 2010.

Also in the fall of 2009, Tennant began hosting the PBS drama anthology series Masterpiece Contemporary in the US.

Although fan and media rumors have linked Tennant to other high-profile projects, such as the Peter Jackson-produced adaptation of The Hobbit, most of these rumours have been denied by Tennant or not confirmed. At the July 2009 San Diego ComicCon, Tennant indicated he had major projects under consideration, but did not elaborate. Also in July, it was announced that Tennant would be appearing in St. Trinian's: The Secret of Fritton's Gold, the second film in the rebooted Trinian's franchise. The film also features at least two of Tennant's Doctor Who guest stars: Fenella Woolgar and Talulah Riley. He was also cast to co-star with Simon Pegg in the upcoming John Landis film, Burke and Hare, but had to drop out shortly before filming began, reportedly due to NBC refusing to release him from his contract.

In November 2009 it was announced that Tennant would star in the pilot for Rex is Not Your Lawyer, a planned comedic law drama which, if picked up, will air on NBC in the United States. This makes Tennant the first Doctor actor to be given a lead role in an American TV series after leaving Doctor Who. In reporting his casting, the Hollywood Reporter compared the situation to Hugh Laurie moving from UK comedy series like Blackadder to American superstardom on House. The pilot, which pairs Tennant with fellow science fiction TV alumnus Jerry O'Connell (Sliders), was filmed between early November and mid December 2009. In late January, it was reported that Rex had not been picked up as a spring replacement, something that was never suggested as a realistic option, but was still under consideration for a fall 2010 pickup, something which led the tabloid press to wrongly report the project had been shelved.It was reported on January 24, 2010, that the sets had been dismantled and stored, and that the show had not been picked up for spring 2010. It was also passed over for the fall 2010 schedule. In September 2010, in an interview at the Emmy Awards, Tennant confirmed the project was "dead."

In 2010, Tennant filmed the TV drama series Single Father and three films, The Decoy Bride, Fright Night, and United. In Single Father, which was shot in Scotland between March-May and screened on BBC1 in October, he played a father of five children struggling to cope after the death of his partner. The Decoy Bride was filmed in June and July in Scotland and on the Isle of Man, and stars Tennant as the fiancé of a Hollywood movie star who falls for the local girl hired to be a 'decoy' to distract the paparazzo. Tennant was in New Mexico between August and October filming Fright Night, a remake of the cult 80s horror film, in which he plays vampire hunter Peter Vincent, a part originated by Roddy McDowall. In October, he flew to Uganda to shoot a charity film for Comic Relief. In November and December Tennant filmed United in Newcastle, a drama about the 1958 Munich plane crash in which he stars as Manchester United coach Jimmy Murphy. All three films are due to be released in 2011.

In January 2011 Tennant announced he and his Doctor Who co-star Catherine Tate would be starring in a theatre production of Much Ado About Nothing, which will run at the Wyndham's Theatre in London between May and September 2011.

Also in January 2011, UK newspapers reported that he was engaged and planning a 2012 wedding to Georgia Moffett, who starred opposite him in the 2008 episode The Doctor's Daughter, and that she was pregnant with the couple's first child. Both Tennant's father and Moffett's father Peter Davison gave interviews about the pregnancy. On 31 March, UK newspapers reported that Moffett had given birth to a daughter, Olive, earlier that week. Neither Tennant nor Moffett themselves have ever spoken about or confirmed their relationship publicly.

List of credits

Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories

As Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood

• DWU: Sympathy for the Devil
• BFA: The Wasting

As Galanar

• BFDE: The Exterminators
• BFDE: The Healers
• BFDE: The Survivors
• BFDE: The Demons
• BFDE: The Warriors
• BFDE: The Future

Others

• DWU: Exile - Time Lord 2
• BFA: Colditz - Feldwebel Kurtz
• BFA: Medicinal Purposes - Daft Jamie

Television and Film

• Dramarama (The Secret of Croftmore) - Neil McDonald
• Bunch of Five (Miles Better) - Police Officer
• Rab C. Nesbitt (Touch) - Davina
• The Tales of Para Handy - John MacBryde
• Takin' Over the Asylum - Campbell
• The Bill (Deadline) - Steve Clemens
• A Mug's Game - Kevin
• Jude - Drunk Undergraduate
• Conjuring Shakespeare (Six Part Documentary on Shakespeare)
• Bite - Alistair Galbraith
• Holding the Baby (1.2) - Nurse
• Duck Patrol - Simon 'Darwin' Brown
• L.A. Without a Map - Richard
• The Last September - Captain Gerald Holthurst
• Love in the 21st Century (Reproduction) - John
• The Mrs Bradley Mysteries (Death at the Opera) - Max Valentine
• Being Considered - Larry
• Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (Episode - Drop Dead) - Gordon Stylus
• Terri McIntyre (series 2) - Greig Millar
• Only Human (BBC Pilot) - Tyler
• Sweetnightgoodheart - Pete
• People Like Us (The Actor) - Rob Harker
• Foyle's War (A Lesson in Murder) - Theo Howard
• Nine 1/2 Minutes - Charlie
• Trust - Gavin MacEwan
• Posh Nosh (Comfort Food - Paella) - Jose-Luis
• Bright Young Things - Ginger Littlejohn
• Spine Chillers (Bradford in my Dreams) - Dr. Krull
• Old Street - Mr. Watson
• The Deputy - Christopher Williams
• He Knew He Was Right - Mr. Gibson
• Traffic Warden - The Traffic Warden
• Blackpool - D.I. Peter Carlisle
• Casanova - Giacomo Casanova
• The Quartermass Experiment - Doctor Gordon Briscoe
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Barty Crouch Junior
• Secret Smile - Brendan Block
• Doctor Who (Series 1.13) - The Tenth Doctor
• Doctor Who (Series 2.0) - The Doctor
• Doctor Who (Attack of the Graske) (VG) - The Doctor
• The Romantics - Jean-Jacques Rosseau
• The Chatterly Affair - Richard Hoggart
• Free Jimmy (voice) - Hamish
• Doctor Who (Series 2.1 - 2.13) - The Doctor
• Doctor Who (Series 3.0) - The Doctor
• Recovery - Alan Hamilton
• Doctor Who (Series 3.1 - 3.13) - The Doctor
• Learners - Chris (The Driving Instructer)
• Einstein and Eddington - Sir Arthur Eddington
• Doctor Who (Series 4.0) - The Doctor
• Extras - Himself
• Doctor Who (Series 4.1 - 4.13) - The Doctor
• Doctor Who (The Next Doctor) - The Doctor
• Swarm: Nature's Incredible Invasions - Narreter
• Glorious 39 - Hector
• Doctor Who (Planet of the Dead) - The Doctor
• Doctor Who (The Waters of Mars) - The Doctor
• Doctor Who (The End of Time) - The Doctor
• St. Trianian's 2: The Legend of Fritten's Gold - Lord Piers Pomfrey
• The Sarah Jane Adventures (The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith) - The Doctor
• Hamlet - Hamlet
• Rex is Not Your Lawyer (US Pilot) - Rex Alexander
• How to Train your Dragon (voice) - Spitleout
• Single Father - Dave
• The Decoy Bride - James Aubrey
• Fright Night - Peter Vincent
• United - Jimmy Murphy

Radio

• Much Ado about Nothing Benedick BBC Radio 4 (2001)
• Dixon of Dock Green PC Andy Crawford BBC Radio 4 (2005)
• Of Mice and Men Narrator BBC Radio 4

Theatre

• The Princess and the Goblin Curdie
• Antigone
• Jump the Life to Come
• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
• Scotland Matters
• What the Butler Saw Nick (1995) Royal National Theatre
• Vassa — Scenes from Family Life Pavel (1996) Albery Theatre
• As You Like It Touchstone (1996)Royal Shakespeare Company
• The General From America Hamilton (1996) Royal Shakespeare Company
• The Herbal Bed Jack Lane (1996) Royal Shakespeare Company
• Hurly Burly Mickey (1997)
• Black Comedy Brinsley Miller
• Edward III (staged reading) Edward, the Black Prince (1999)
• An Experienced Woman Gives Advice Kenny (1999)
• Comedy of Errors Antipholus of Syracuse (2000) Royal Shakespeare Company
• The Rivals Jack (2000) Royal Shakespeare Company
• Romeo and Juliet Romeo (2000) Royal Shakespeare Company
• Comedians (2001)
• The Real Inspector Hound Moon
• The Lobby Hero Jeff (2002) Donmar Warehouse
• Push-Up Robert (2002) Royal Court Jerwood Theatre
• The Glass Menagerie Tom
• Long Day's Journey Into Night Edmund
• Tartuffe Valere
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Nick
• Hay Fever Simon, Edinburgh Royal Lyceum
• Merlin Arthur, Edinburgh Royal Lyceum
• King Lear Edgar
• The Pillowman Katurian (2003) Royal National Theatre
• Twelve Angry Men
• Slab Boys Trilogy Alan, Young Vic
• Look Back in Anger Jimmy Porter (2005), Edinburgh Royal Lyceum
• Hamlet Hamlet (2008), Royal Shakespeare Company
• Love's Labours Lost Berowne (2008), Royal Shakespeare Company
• Celebrity Autobiography (2010) Various characters, Leicester Square Theatre
• Much Ado About Nothing (2011) Benedick, Wyndham's Theatre

BBC webcasts

• Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka as Caretaker.

Awards

• Theatre Management Association Best Actor Award: The Glass Menagerie
• 2000 — Nominated for Ian Charleson Award (Best classical actor under 30): Comedy of Errors
• 2003 — Nominated for Olivier Award as Best Actor: Lobby Hero
• 2005 — Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland, Best Male Performance: Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger
• 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009/2010 (awards ceremony shown in January 2010 instead of October 2009) — ITV National Television Awards, Best Drama Actor, The Doctor in Doctor Who

External links

• David Tennant at the Internet Movie Database
• David-Tennant.com Official Site
• Page focussing on Tennant's theatre work
• "David Tennant Conquers TV" - BBC News Article (16th April 2005)
• Profile BBC website
• David Tennant: His days of blissful anonymity are numbered, The Independent, (07-December-2005), accessed 22-July-2008