SHIPPING FORECAST

Mandip Gill is Yasmin Khan

How is life in the world of Doctor Who?

It’s really good. It’s really, really good. We’re back filming and it’s ace. I’m so glad to be back. It’s just really exciting. It’s already bigger than the two series we’ve done before. Bigger because we’ve had a pandemic, and we’re just going to go bigger – we’ve done some exciting stuff today already. I just feel really lucky to be back working after so long.

What was it like having Doctor Who royalty John Barrowman on set?

Amazing! He’s such a force to be reckoned with – he’s got such an energy that’s completely different to Yaz, Graham and Ryan. It’s an energy that we don’t bring as humans, even a very different energy to the Doctor. We had some really gorgeous scenes together where he tells me about his experience of having the Doctor, and losing the Doctor, and all that kind of stuff. So I think he really resonates with Yaz, and they really bonded – but to have John as John on set is just, I mean… imagine him and Brad together! [laughs].

Does working with new-look Daleks make them more menacing?

I think they’re always just menacing. Because they’re a little bit different, and a little bit changed, you feel like, “Oh, we get the new version”. It sort of cements you in the Doctor Who world, because we’ve seen new monsters and some of the old monsters, but now we’ve seen updated monsters. There are more Daleks this time. There’s lots of extermination.

What do you think of fans “shipping” character romances?

Me and the Doctor? I love it. The fan art is just out there. It’s good, innit? You want a character and storyline – even though that storyline wasn’t there – you want people to be talking about it. I don’t want it to just stay on-screen, I want people to relate to it or have seen something in our two characters that they think could go on a different journey. So to me, I’m here for it. I’m not saying it happens or it doesn’t happen. Even if they were to do it, say, with a different character, it’s like, “Well, at least I feel like my character’s three-dimensional and realistic, and they’re able to relate to it”.

So you’d be fine with Yaz and the Doctor getting together?

I mean, only if she balms her lips, because I really take good care of mine. Don’t let that be your headline – she’ll get loads of lip oil sent to her!