Chatting to RadioTimes.com<\/a> at his North London home, which is filled to the brim with mementoes from his illustrious career, he explains:\u00a0\u201cI became an actor by accident \u2013 someone mistook me for an actor and offered me a job and I took it because I always had this philosophy of saying yes.<\/p>\n \u201cI ended up in a thing called The Ken Campbell Roadshow and we created a show called An Evening With Sylvester McCoy, the Human Bomb, which I was a stuntman [in].<\/p>\n \u201cI used to have bricks broken on my chest, I used to bang nails up my nose, escape from mail bags and chains. I\u2019d set light to my head, blow fire, explode a bomb in my chest, try to break the world record for having ferrets down my trousers. It was a common everyday thing \u2013 no, it wasn\u2019t!<\/p>\n \u201cI was a little stuntman in this mad comic show written by the genius of Ken Campbell and it became very successful all over Europe, and it kind of started me off in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n As Sylvester McCoy turns 80, he sits down with RadioTimes.com for an in-depth interview about life, Doctor Who\u2026and spoons. Stay tuned across the weekend for more videos and stories from the Seventh Doctor legend.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> Continuing with a career on stage, it was a role in The Pied Piper that caught the attention of the higher ups at the BBC, particularly Doctor Who producer John Nathan Turner<\/a>. McCoy remembers: \u201cFor years, people used to say to me, \u2018You could be Doctor Who.\u2019 I think part of the reason was I used to wear a scarf all the time\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen Peter Davison<\/a> was leaving before Colin [Baker]<\/a> came in, I got in touch with my agent and said, \u2018Peter Davison\u2019s leaving, shall we try and see [about] the Doctor?\u2019 They\u2019d already cast Colin so I\u2019d given up. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd then, two years later, Colin was leaving, so again I got in touch with my agent and said, \u2018Have another go.\u2019 So my agent phoned John Nathan Turner and said, \u2018I think you should see Sylvester McCoy.\u2019 And John said, \u2018Who?’\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He recalls: \u201cJohn Nathan Turner came along to see [The Pied Piper] and went back afterwards, I learned many years later, and said, \u2018I\u2019ve found my new Doctor.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, I was handed this part. I was quite ignorant of it because I\u2019d been working in the theatre for years. So I hadn\u2019t seen it, I had a distant memory of it. Patrick Troughton<\/a> was my Doctor but it was a long, long time ago, and so I had no idea really what role I had been handed, and then discovered I\u2019d been handed one of the great television acting roles where you could do anything with it. The canvas was enormous, and you could do all sorts of things. And so that was a blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n But McCoy\u2019s first days on Doctor Who were anything but smooth. Following his replacement, Sixth Doctor actor Colin Baker refused to return for the famous regeneration scene that marked the beginning of McCoy\u2019s era (a decision he\u2019s since admitted he regrets<\/a>), with McCoy having no choice but to whack on a wig and make the best of it.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, you noticed did you?\u201d he jokes. \u201c[I\u2019m] surprised, because they dressed me up. They put me in Colin\u2019s costume. And they put a wig on me and I looked like Harpo Marx.\u201d<\/p>\n Naturally, he\u2019s quick to point out the bright side, though: \u201cI\u2019m an actor who\u2019s played two Doctors! I was the only one \u2013 but there\u2019s another one come along, damn him! David! David [Tennant]<\/a> is now playing Doctor number Ten and and Fourteen. I was Six and Seven \u2013 I got there first!\u201d<\/p>\n Harpo Marx wigs aside, McCoy quickly found his feet on Doctor Who and still raves about the cast he got to star alongside, including his \u201cold mate\u201d Bonnie Langford as companion Mel, Kate O\u2019Mara (who he was \u201cin awe\u201d of) as The Rani, the great Anthony Ainley as The Master, and the fabulous Wanda Ventham, who once decided to bring her son to set \u2013 a 15-year-old Benedict Cumberbatch.<\/p>\n But he was still grappling with what he wanted to do with his Doctor.<\/p>\n![\"Sylvester](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/08\/Sylvester-and-Bonnie-Cropped-bb8f141.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Sylvester")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>