James Croot.
Not many actors can claim to have Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, a Marvel movie and Broadchurch on their CV and still not be a household name.
Yet that’s the fate of David Bradley, a British character actor whose face and voice you’ll instantly recognise, even if the name doesn’t ring a bell. Now the septuagenarian is about to add another pop-culture icon to his resume – Doctor Who.
He’s actually played him before, in 2013’s An Adventure in Space and Time, a dramatisation of the genesis of the long-running series, made to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Bradley was actually playing the First Doctor, actor William Hartnell, which naturally necessitated a few in-character scenes. He thought that would be the end of his time-travelling experience, he recounts via phone from his Warwickshire.
‘‘They sounded me out [about playing the First Doctor] around about Christmas last year, just to see if it was feasible. Without hesitation, I just said, ‘yes, please’ – I didn’t even need to read the script because I knew [departing Doctor Who showrunner] Steven Moffat would write something great and the chance to work with Peter [Capaldi] was too much to resist. Then when Mark Gatiss was on board, that was really the icing on the cake because we’d worked closely together on Adventures in Space and Time [Gatiss was a writer on the one-off drama].’’
With his role in the upcoming Christmas Special Twice Upon A Time, a clearly chuffed Bradley, previously best-known for playing Argus Filch in the Harry Potter movies and the villainous Walder Frey on Game of Thrones, says he’s delighted he can now ‘officially say I’ve been Doctor Who’.
‘‘To be honest, I’m sort of hanging on the others’ coat-tales, really. It’s a dream for someone like myself who remembers seeing the First Doctor in 1963, never imagining that this would happen.’’
Describing the Christmas Special‘ s story as ‘‘wonderful’’ and a ‘‘fitting way of Moffat and Capaldi to move on’’, Bradley (who had also appeared in a previous
Like hundreds of millions of viewers around the globe, David Bradley is looking forward to seeing his efforts as the First Doctor in this year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special, he tells
Doctor Who story Dinosaurs on a Spaceship in 2012) admits he felt a little pressure when he turned up to a room filled with 30 to 40 people ‘‘waiting to see what I was going to come up with’’.
‘‘However, Peter and everyone else really made me feel so much part of the whole family straight away. It makes it so much easier when people are fun to work with and very relaxed about things.
‘‘I think a lot of the comic energy of the episode comes from this guy from the present and this other guy from the 1960s. It makes you realise how much things have changed in the last 50 years. The First Doctor brings his non-PC attitude to a lot of things and it’s a bit of a culture clash between the two of them.‘‘
And until they realise they are actually one and the same person, their mutual suspicion provides a lot of the episode’s fun, believes Bradley. ‘‘Before we read it through for the first time, Steven said, ‘Just kept it light. Don’t invest it with gigantic pauses and just enjoy it’.
He says playing Hartnell before was a huge advantage. ‘‘I had all this previous knowledge that simplified the process for me. It was like putting on an old, favourite coat.’’
‘‘Before An Adventure in Space and Time, the BBC sent me a lot of