Paul McGann

Paul McGann (born 14th November 1959) played the eighth incarnation of the Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie and also voices the role in audio dramas for BBC Radio and Big Finish Audio Dramas. His is considered to be either the longest or shortest tenure as the Doctor, depending on whether one counts the non-television stories to be canon or not. (Some do not recognize the canonicity of the television movie at all.)

File:Paul McGann.jpg

Paul McGann in a casting call photo for the 1996 Doctor Who television movie.

McGann made his name on the BBC serial The Monocled Mutineer, in which he played the lead role. Following on from that part, he was cast as the eponymous "I" in Bruce Robinson's cult film comedy, Withnail and I (1987). He also starred as Anton Skrebensky in Ken Russell's 1989 adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow.

Since then his career has concentrated on television work including the Hornblower series and he has had small roles in a number of high-profile American films including Alien³ and Queen of the Damned. His voice also featured in the 1997 video game Ceremony of Innocence together with those of Isabella Rossellini and Ben Kingsley. Coincidentally, his co-star in Withnail, actor Richard E. Grant, also played the Doctor in the 2003 animated webcast Scream of the Shalka, and also played the (Quite Handsome) 10th Doctor in the Doctor Who parody sketch, "The Curse of Fatal Death."

Although McGann played the Doctor on screen only once, he has reprised the role of the Eighth Doctor in an extensive series of audio plays by Big Finish Productions and was treated as the "current" Doctor by the majority of fandom until Christopher Eccleston assumed the role in 2005. McGann continues to play the Eighth Doctor on audio, and also in a second series of audios produced by Big Finish for broadcast on BBC7 radio. He also, like other past Doctors, contributes to BBC Video's, ever-growing series of classic series DVD releases, for example providing the narration for "The Ties That Bind Us", a featurette on the 2008 release of The Five Doctors.

He was born in Surrey, although his family moved to Liverpool when he was a young child. His brothers Mark, Joe, and Stephen are also actors; the four of them starred together (as four brothers) in the 1995 television miniseries The Hanging Gale. They also formed the pop quartet "The McGanns", releasing the single "Everything But The Boy".

Paul McGann reportedly found out about the Doctor Who TV Movie during production of the 1993 film The Three Musketeers. Tim Curry was offered the role of the Eighth Doctor and he was interested in playing the role, because he's always interested in a role that isn't a villain. But he didn't know how to play the character. One day during filming, Curry approached McGann on how he would play The Eighth Doctor if he was cast. Curry turned down the role of The Eighth Doctor because of scheduling conflicts with several movies and McGann would go on to be cast as the Eighth Doctor.