Doctor Who Doctor's nature, somewhere between the twelfth and final incarnation. On rare occasions, other actors have stood in for the lead. In "The Five Doctors", Richard Hurndall played the First Doctor due to William Hartnell's death in 1975; 34 years later David Bradley similarly replaced Hartnell in "Twice Upon a Time". In "Time and the Rani", Sylvester McCoy briefly played the Sixth Doctor during the regeneration sequence, carrying on as the Seventh. For more information, see the list of actors who have played the Doctor. In other media, the Doctor has been played by various other actors, including Peter Cushing in
William Hartnell "The Name of the Doctor". The following story and the 50th anniversary special of the show, "The Day of the Doctor", featured two new pieces of dialogue for Hartnell's Doctor, recorded by John Guilor, who had previously voiced the actor in a reconstruction of "Planet of Giants". Hartnell's Doctor also made a silent cameo appearance in the Series 9 episode "The Witch's Familiar" (2015) again played by a body double. David Bradley, who portrayed Hartnell in the biopic "An Adventure in Space and Time", played the First Doctor in the Series 10 episode "The Doctor Falls", and the 2017 Christmas