IN HER OWN WORDS Jodie Whittaker

As the new Doctor Who finds her feet (7pm, BBC1), we hear from Jodie, 36, about her life and career before she became the first woman to take charge of the Tardis…

On her early decision to pursue a career in acting:

‘It was very apparent what my skills were at school. I failed every single academic class – all the subjects anyone gives you any credit for: maths, English, science. It wasn’t out of lack of trying; that just wasn’t how I learnt. But I was really good at drama and I just loved it, and so for me it felt, well, if someone’s a really good mathematician, they would probably follow that route, and I’m really good at drama, so I’ll pursue that.’

On turning up on the set of her first movie, the 2006 film Venus, opposite Peter O’Toole:

‘I was absolutely bricking it. The three years of training [at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in central London] go out of your head when you’re stood there on the first day like a rabbit in the headlights, saying “I don’t know what I’m doing.”’

On the role of traumatised mother Beth Latimer in three series of the ITV drama Broadchurch:

‘We [actors] have it easy a lot of the time. We get to go through all these jolly bits, so it’s good when we’ve got to work hard.’

On getting paid the same as her Doctor Who predecessor, Peter Capaldi:

‘I was never going to accept less… I don’t enjoy being thought of as less than for doing the same job – no woman does. But in this particular job, I didn’t need to demand it because it was already in place.’