David Tennant has said that returning to Doctor Who for new episodes by Russell T Davies didn’t feel like a “risk”, citing his complete faith in the prolific screenwriter.
Last weekend, the actor made his long-awaited return to Doctor Who in BBC Centenary special The Power of the Doctor, which ended with a surprising regeneration for Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor.
Rather than transforming into Ncuti Gatwa’s incoming series lead, it was Tennant who we saw back in the TARDIS, which sets the stage for next year’s 60th anniversary specials.
When asked on BBC News if he was concerned about the prospect of tarnishing his esteemed Doctor Who run with a subpar return, Tennant countered that Davies’s involvement assured him that wouldn’t be the case.
“It didn’t really feel like a risk,” he said. “I knew that Russell T Davies was in charge and I love working with him and I love receiving a script with his name on the front, so that just felt like it was a bit of a no-brainer, really.”
That said, in a separate interview this week on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Tennant admitted that he thought it could be “difficult to get in the groove again” after so much time away from Doctor Who.
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He continued that Doctor Who “runs through my life as if through a stick of rock”, having been a huge fan as a child and quickly becoming a household name during his first stint on the show.
“[It’s a] lovely lovely thing to get to revisit something that was such a wonderful, happy, significant time in my life, and you move on from it with a whole mixture of emotions – and one of those is sadness and regret,” added Tennant on BBC News.
“So to be able to revisit that and to get another shot, it was a total joy from start to finish.”
Doctor Who is available to stream on BBC iPlayer with episodes of the classic series also available on BritBox – you can sign up for a 7-day free trial here.
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