Whovians around the world were delighted when it emerged that David Tennant would be returning to Doctor Who for next year’s 60th-anniversary special – and the star has now revealed that his return came about as something of “an accident”.
In a recent interview with BBC News, the Tenth Doctor actor explained that “this all started” when he and various other stars from the show’s past took part in a series of watch-alongs at the height of lockdown.
“At a certain time and day everyone would press play on a certain episode and some of the people who had been involved in those episodes were Tweeting along,” he said, adding: “I don’t Tweet but my wife helped me!”
It was during these events that he first spoke about the possibility of a return with showrunner Russell T Davies and former co-star Catherine Tate.
“[We] were just having a text exchange and Catherine said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to do it again?’” he revealed.
“Russell said, ‘We could do a one off, maybe they’d let us.’ We said, ‘Yeah that would be a laugh,’ and then it all went quiet.”
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It was some time later when Davies got in touch again with the news that he was set to return as showrunner.
“Suddenly Russell let us know that he was taking over the show again and he would be back fully in charge and would we come and play a little bit for him?” Tennant said.
“So I don’t know if we gave him the idea to take Doctor Who back but certainly we thought if he’s doing it, we can’t let these young people have all the fun.”
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