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Caitlin Blackwood (Irish Gaelic pronunciation: Catleen) (born 23 June 2000[1]) is an actress from Northern Ireland who played the young Amelia Pond in The Eleventh Hour, The Big Bang, Let's Kill Hitler and The God Complex, with a non-speaking cameo at the end of The Angels Take Manhattan. She is the cousin of Karen Gillan who played the adult Amy Pond, although they had never met before Doctor Who. It was Gillan who convinced producers to allow Blackwood to play the role, but she had to go through auditions first. (CON: Call Me the Doctor)
Blackwood is unique among the various juvenile actors and infants who have portrayed companions in their youths. She, not her adult cousin, originated the role of Amelia "Amy" Pond before the story jumped ahead and Gillan took over. Both the audience and the Doctor (Matt Smith) met young Amelia, not adult Amy, first. Seven-year-old Amelia (Blackwood was nine years old when filming her début) fully interacted with the Doctor who grew fond of her and invited her to travel with him despite her youth. (TV: The Eleventh Hour) Blackwood and Sydney Wade who portrayed Amelia's daughter Melody in the two-part The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon have been the only juvenile actors to portray companions' younger selves in more than one episode, and Blackwood is the only such actor to have done so on a continuing, recurring basis. It was also Blackwood, not Gillan, who closed out the role via archive footage from The Eleventh Hour. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
In 2020, Blackwood returned to the role to voice Amelia in The Raggedy Doctor by Amelia Pond, written by Steven Moffat for Doctor Who: Lockdown!, followed by Big Finish's The Eighth of March audio story Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden in 2023.