The Doctor will see you now
Jodie Whittaker returns to the Tardis
When it comes to her time spent as television’s most famous time traveller, Jodie Whittaker has just one regret. She wishes she didn’t set herself up as the Doctor who speaks at lightspeed. ‘‘I made such an error in season one when I decided to speak at a million miles an hour, and I’ve had to carry that on,’’ the British actress says. If you watched Whittaker step into the role last year as the highly anticipated ‘‘first female Doctor’’, the pace she delivers the show’s jargon is impressive. ‘‘Bio-fix on the location of the Dalek DNA. Cross-reference with the signal triangulation of Lin’s phone – it’s the same place. Lin and that creature, they’re together,’’ she rattled off at lightning speed during the Doctor Who season 11 special while trying to take down a Dalek, just one example of many through Whittaker’s first season at the helm. It’s the kind of stuff that ‘‘doesn’t get easier,’’ but Whittaker says she does feel less anxious now that she’s seen out the first season – and won praise for it. ‘‘I spent the whole first season anxious and stressed that it was hard to learn the lines, and it felt like raising the stakes a lot,’’ she says. But the effort that she put into every piece of her Doctor’s personality paid dividends. The Independent’s Ed Power said the series had ‘‘changed [the show] profoundly for the better’’ Critic Bex Axford wrote in The Guardian that Whittaker’s Doctor was ‘‘guaranteed to stick in people’s hearts’’. Where David Tennant’s Doctor (2005-2010) was a charismatic, charming fellow, and Peter Capaldi’s Time Lord (2014-2017) struggled relating to humans, Whittaker is earning a reputation as a Doctor who’s as enthusiastic as she is empathetic. With the long-running science fiction series returning for season 12 on January 2 (Whittaker’s second with the show), she’s already wondering how she’ll return to delivering lines like, ‘‘Why don’t you love me any more?’’ when her time as the Doctor is up – lines that pale in comparison to her new norm. ‘‘I imagine the brain training that I’m in for the next however many years is going to work wonders when I get older. I think my memory is going to be incredible,’’ she says with a hearty laugh. Whittaker was a household name long before she landed the role of a lifetime. She won praise for her portrayal of grieving mother Beth Latimer in Broadchurch, and for her role as Ffion in the Black Mirror episode, The Entire History of You. Then came Doctor Who, the long-running BBC series, which follows ‘‘The Doctor’’ – an alien who travels through time in the Tardis (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), saving the universe alongside their companion(s). When Whittaker first embarked on that journey, her knowledge of the show was slim. Luckily for Whittaker, Broadchurch showrunner Chris Chibnall – who was moving to produce and write Doctor Who – had complete faith in her abilities. ‘‘Chris Chibnall was very supportive when I said in my audition, ‘look, I’ve seen a few episodes. Now that I’ve got the part what do you want me to watch?’ and he said, ‘I don’t’.’’ Whittaker says the move not to go deep into the series and its layered history ‘‘was the right decision’’ for her at the time, giving her space to carve out her own version of the iconic Time Lord. ‘‘To sit and watch every episode, for me, will be a pleasure to do at the end when I’m not so selfconscious and feeling like I’ve made a terrible character choice,’’ she says. Now that the anxiety of season 11 has well and truly dissipated, Whittaker says returning to film season 12 was like the ‘‘family coming back together’’. That family consists of the cast, crew, and the three actors who play her companions – played by Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair) and British television royalty Bradley Walsh (Graham O’Brien). ‘‘There’s this really lovely dynamic that’s natural, and [there’s] a natural chemistry between us all,’’ she says. Season 12, which will feature guest appearances from the likes of Stephen Fry and Lenny Henry, sees the companions split off on separate adventures with the Doctor, which creates spaces to ‘‘explore those dynamics much more’’ and develop the
companions more than we saw in season 11. Whittaker’s voice lights up whenever her companions come up in conversation. When she says they’re close, you know she’s telling the truth. ‘‘Brad is hilarious and the most immature nearly 60-year-old I’ve ever met – he is so naughty! ‘‘Mandip laughs at anything, so you can’t make eye contact with her sometimes during takes because she’ll absolutely go, and Tosin is always dancing along to something and showing us something. ‘‘He’s the youngest so he’s always found something on the internet that we’ve all missed and has us howling,’’ she says. It’s imperative they like each other. While the outside world was moaning about having to survive a year without Doctor Who, Whittaker and her companions spent just one month apart. ‘‘It’s 91⁄2, 10 months of shooting and most of us are away from home, because most of us live in London but we shoot in Wales. ‘‘But it’s the most incredible journey you could ever go on.’’ One thing Whittaker did know before donning her Doctor’s robes was that you ‘‘find your feet continually with this role’’. ‘‘There are still things I haven’t explored, there are still areas to go, and in this series we absolutely go into completely different realms. The Doctor, particularly, emotionally there are different challenges.’’ Whittaker says the lack of predictability is a big part of what makes it such a ‘‘wonderful’’ job. She says she’s still surprised by the way Doctor Who is ‘‘unlike any other show’’. ‘‘You don’t have a stereotypical demographic,’’ she says. ‘‘You have people from all walks of life and all ages who are really into it, who love it for many different reasons. ‘‘For some people it’s the first time they’ve ever seen it and for some people it’s been a family tradition for years, and some of the fans have an encyclopedic knowledge that I could maybe one day dream to obtain,’’ she says. ‘‘You can’t predict how you’re going to play every scene so you’ve got to be malleable and instinctive, and also draw on the ones who have gone before and know that essentially, this is your Doctor now, and trust in yourself to make the right decisions.’’ The emotional toll of the job is something she couldn’t have planned for, either. ‘‘I find it a really emotional journey,’’ she says. ‘‘Obviously my first contact with Chris was doing Beth Latimer in Broadchurch and, as far as emotion goes, that was bordering on traumatic in the things you are a part of [and] the storylines you’re trying to immerse yourself in,’’ she says, referencing her character enduring her son’s murder trial while also pregnant with her third child. The intense emotion that comes with Doctor Who is balanced by the show’s endless possibility. There’s always new ground to be covered and each Doctor brings a freshness that saves the show from ever becoming stagnant. ‘‘I’ve always had a love of television that has possibility. My favourite films are Interstellar, Arrival and all the things that have unanswered questions and don’t have the need to have a conclusion,’’ she says. As a human playing an alien, Whittaker says the fact you don’t know the answers to everything is liberating. ‘‘Anything is possible, so don’t decide and don’t limit yourself by pre-empting and prejudging and limiting your own opportunity and ability with a sense of ‘well, I can’t be that because’. The way the Doctor’s two feet have leapt into the world of the unknown is so inspiring.’’ Whittaker only hopes that as she grows older, she doesn’t get more cynical. ‘‘I hope that I try to continue on with that kind of open-heartedness.’’ But she appreciates the real world is far from the utopia of Doctor Who, where she’s able to solve most of the problems that she comes across. ‘‘It’s hard, particularly in the world as it is. There are so many things out there that can leave you feeling frustrated and scared, but I suppose the inclusivity and love Doctor Who celebrates, in this time in particular, is something really important to hold on to.’’
The first episode of Doctor Who season 12 screens at 7.30pm on Thursday, and continues on Mondays and Fridays on TVNZ OnDemand.