
Who's Who

TV viewers have already had their first glimpse of the new Doctor Who when Christopher Eccleston morphed into David Tennant in the final episode of the last series.
The job offer was a dream come true for the Scottish star. 'It was a show I had always loved and known as a kid,' David tells Now. I grew up watching it religiously. In fact I was obsessed with it. Doctor Who is an institution - I can remember watching Jon Pertwee regenerate into Tom Baker as the Doctor all those years ago.'
David also collects Doctor Who DVDs and even has a Dalek on his desk in his North London flat.
Despite his enthusiasm, David admits that he didn't say yes right away. 'I couldn't help but laugh to myself because it seemed impossible,' he says. 'It was something almost comic for me to be invited to be the fellow who was so much of my life as a kid. Suddenly I was being asked to become par of Doctor Who history - and it didn't seem real.'
Still, he had his reservations about whether it was the right thing to do professionally. David, not one to act impulsively, recalls:
'I mulled it over for a long time. The series is so big that it's slightly intimidating to think about following in the footsteps of all those great actors who played Doctor Who.'
In the end, he just couldn't say no. Growing up the son of a Church Of Scotland minister, David says he was aware from the age of three that he wanted to be an actor. 'I just knew it. I can't explain how or why, although my granny did amateur dramatics. I loved the idea of people telling stories and escaping to a fantasy world. When I think back I don't know why I was so single-minded about being an actor.'
He attended the Royal Scottish Academy Of Music and Dram, then graduated to the Royal Shakespeare Company. He now harbours an ambition to make it in Hollywood. He's already made LA Without A Map, a small, independent US movie co-starring Julie Deply, which also featured Johnny Depp playing himself. 'I played an undertaker from Bradford who meets a girl from LA when she's bumming around Europe and follows her back to California thinking she's the love of his life.' The movie he says never came out in cinemas, 'Although I do have a French language copy of it, he laughs.
David's less forthcoming and become guarded when asked about his private life. He recently turned up to a London premiere with no Angels star Louise Delamere - an ex of Robbie Williams - but has also been spotted out with a mystery brunette.
'To be frank with you, I'm not quite sure myself what's going on,' he says. 'I've certainly been on the sticky end of a relationship and it's very hard. It's one of the downfalls of the kind of peripatetic nature of this job,' he says blaming work for his romantic problems. 'When you're away working things are pretty intense and when you're not working it's whatever the opposite end of intense is. It can be very difficult Someone who's not in this business doesn't quite get the peculiar bipolar nature of it.'
However, he insists that he isn't moaning about the choices he's made. 'It's just the nature of what I've chosen to do. Look, the fact is I get to do a job that doesn't feel like working. I love what I do and I wouldn't change it. I guess every job has it's good and bad bits.'
While Doctor Who will turn him into a high profile actor and may well impinge on his private life, David's optimistic about it.
'I'm no hounded by the paparazzi. You make a decision on how you want to play that side of things by not doing certain things at certain times. At the same time it's fun to get some of the perks - an invitation to the odd premiere or the odd flash party. You might as well enjoy it while it lasts because it probably won't last forever. You have to find the balance between enjoying it and exploiting it,' he laughs.
Details of the storylines that'll feature in the next Doctor Who series are being kept under wraps. But David - ho seldom uses his own Scottish accent in roles - teasingly drops a few clues.
'Doctor Who doesn't have a Scottish accent, but we're investigating ways that he might have one now and gain,' he reveals. 'I'm not supposed to say too much about that as it's part of a storyline that's coming up.'
Source: Now Magazine 10th August 2005