Quotes

Being asked to play the Doctor is an amazing privilege. Like the Doctor himself I find myself in a state of utter terror and delight. I can't wait to get started.

The big reason that Doctor Who (2005) is still with us is because of every single viewer who ever turned on to watch this show, at any age, at any time in its history and in their history and who took it into their heart -- because Doctor Who (2005) belongs to all of us. Everyone made Doctor Who.

I destroyed all my geek stuff because I didn't want to be a geek, and I regret it to this day. Consumed in the geek bonfire of the vanities was a collection of autographs and letters from Peter Cushing, Spike Milligan and Frankie Howerd, the first Doctor Whos, actual astronauts and many more. I wish I'd known that one day the geek would inherit the Earth.

I can't imagine I'll be the new George Clooney. That's not really in the cards.

Hollywood producers aren't going to say, 'Get me that swearing, grey-haired, headless chicken. We need him for our new High School Musical (2006) movie!'

A girl once came to my beery flat in Kensal Green, opened the blinds and cooked me breakfast. I married her.

It's weathered many a storm, but the British film industry is, thankfully, still afloat.

I'm pretty good for an old geek.

I'm not an extravagant man. The fact that I can have a coffee out whenever I want still makes me feel grateful.

I suppose I just like being arty. That's all. Arty.

I never really think of acting and directing as being separate; they are just different expressions of the same thing.

I love people where, at the end of the day, they'll pick up a paintbrush and paint clouds. They can physically make things.

I haven't played Doctor Who (1963) since I was 9 on the playground.

I don't like parties. There was never a party I was at where I didn't wish I was somewhere else.

The Americans just have a great sort of wit about them.

Real heroes are all around us and uncelebrated.

One of the very, very exciting things I have found here in L.A. is that no one talks to you about being Scottish. Whereas, if you are in London and you are trying to put films together and be a film-maker, there is a kind of unspoken sense that, if you are Scottish, you have something to overcome or else you cannot really do that project.

My childhood growing up in that part of Glasgow always sounds like some kind of sub-Catherine Cookson novel of earthy working-class immigrant life, which to some extent it was, but it wasn't really as colourful that.

I've been really terrible in a lot of things because I learned by making mistakes. That makes you a different kind of actor, because you have to figure out for yourself what you do.

I hated improvisation because in my early days as an actor, improvisation meant somebody had just come down from Oxford and they were doing a play above a pub in Kentish Town, and the biggest ego would win.

I don't want to find myself at the age of 60 waiting by the telephone for someone else to decide if I am capable of being in what might be a crummy TV production.

Even though I am a lifelong Doctor Who (1963) fan, I've not played him since I was nine. I downloaded old scripts and practised those in front of the mirror.

At 17 years old, STG took me under its wing and shared its resources and wisdom with me, even allowing me to take part in a show at the Edinburgh Festival. Without STG and the Ramshorn Theatre, I would not have found access to the world of drama that I later made my profession.

What you're doing is acting with yourself. Well, I'm my favourite actor, so in a way it's quite straightforward for me.

When I was acting, I was always asking abut the mechanics of filmmaking. I decided I would learn what everyone on set was doing, so I would feel less threatened.

What I've learnt being an actor is that you've got to be lucky. I got less lucky, and nobody was interested. If a part came up, it would be for the main corpse's friend's brother who was having problems with his marriage.

What annoys me about it is that your fate is always in somebody else's hands. It's always up to somebody else to decide whether or not they want you in their show and so the majority of actors have to play out a waiting game. The constant fear is that it could all end tomorrow.

The only time I've tried to make plans, the cosmic sledgehammer has intervened and something else has happened. You just have to wait and see what comes your way, so that's what I do.

The difference between movies and TV is that in TV you have to have a trauma every week, but that event may not be the biggest event in the characters' lives.

The biggest thing I have realised was that you have to choose your collaborators very carefully, and that not everybody can like you. The process of filmmaking is so difficult, there's no point in doing it unless you can do it the way you want.

STG and the Ramshorn Theatre are a vital part of Glasgow's rich cultural history. To abandon them now is to abandon not only our past, but our future.

Scottish men of a certain age have a black response to almost everything as a measure of how sophisticated they are. I have a very long fuse that eventually explodes after building up a nice head of steam, although it's only happened three times - usually at work when someone takes me for granted.

I've been influenced by the entire history of Doctor Who (1963) and by every actor who's played Doctor Who (1963), and everybody who's worked on the show and made those episodes. I wouldn't be here doing this if it hadn't been for the twelve actors who brilliantly played the part, often in times when it wasn't as easy to be Doctor Who (1963) or as welcome to be Doctor Who (1963) as it is now. So really I stand on their shoulders.

When you're a child, you just want to be whichever Doctor is on TV, whether that's William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker.

There's almost a Grimms' fairy tales element to the show. The Doctor appears and takes people deep into the forest where there are monsters, but he delivers them back safely at the end. That's very, very attractive. Plus I love monsters. Everyone does! Any shows with monsters in them work.

The nice thing about Doctor Who (2005) is, whatever people say, you know someone somewhere loves you. And they always will. The more everyone else hates you, the more that person will say, "He's my Doctor".

[on Doctor Who (2005)] The things I've always adored are still there. That relationship between light and dark, the domestic and the epic. There's a feeling you could step from a supermarket car park on Earth into the Andromeda Nebula or whatever.

I grew up in the '60s with Doctor Who (1963) and The Beatles and Sunday Night at the London Palladium and school milk and bronchitis. All that stuff. It's part of my DNA. When I had my first proper TARDIS scene there was a nice props guy telling me how to work the console. Secretly I was thinking, "I know how to work the TARDIS! I've known for a long time - probably longer than you".

Doctor Who (2005), like time, cannot stand still. It must always move and change.

[in 1974] Jon Pertwee's Doctor of the frock coat and gadgets has gone. But that character was but one of the facets of this eternal Time Lord, the greatest science-fiction character ever created. There is an infinite number of further faces and natures to choose from. Tom Baker must select one and play it to the best of his ability. It is this infinite number of characters that ensures Doctor Who (1963)'s future. For, like time, Doctor Who (1963) will go on forever.

[on his performance in Local Hero (1983)] I don't think I had any capacity to act. I think I was just a bit of a... twat.

The Ladykillers (1955), the movie, is one of those rare things that's an almost perfect movie but it's just full of all this great stuff that you can't leave alone. It's very, very stylish, it has this almost ghoulish quality about it.

If you put me in a real TARDIS, I dread to think what would happen to the universe.

[on playing an older Doctor] Whereas with Matt [Matt Smith] and David [David Tennant] before me there was this romantic thing going on, we don't do that. We have something else which I really like. There's not another relationship you can compare it to. It's not like uncle and niece. He is not a grandfather figure. But because Jenna's [Jenna Coleman] so wonderful, we've found something that's different, and yet it works.

Planet of the Spiders (Planet of the Spiders: Part One (1974)) proved once again the scope and quality of the popular Doctor Who (1963). All involved must be congratulated on producing a classic story leading excellently to the metamorphosis from Jon Pertwee's Doctor to Tom Baker's. The story line was powerful, introducing exciting chase sequences, mysterious ceremonies and chilling monsters. The acting was first-class, particularly Jon Pertwee's performance when the Doctor faced his greatest fear, the Great One! And of course the visual images of senior visual effects designer, Bernard Wilkie, were wonderful to watch.

[on The Ark in Space: Part One (1975)] I love The Ark in Space. I think The Ark in Space is great because I love Tom Baker, his hair is just like the most wildest hair ever. I think later on as you watch the rest of his time as Doctor Who (1963) I think he started to get a perm or something, he looks more like Harpo Marx towards the end of his run. But in his first season he's just got this absolute mess of bohemian hair, what would you call it, a Tom-fro, a Doc-fro? He's got a big Doc-fro. And also his speech in that about human beings, he just takes grasp of the role of Doctor Who (1963) in that season, in that story, so completely.

I could sit and watch Jon Pertwee do anything. I could just sit and watch him read the telephone book. He's such authority and if you're in trouble you want those doors to swing open and Jon Pertwee to come storming in with a flap of his cape.

I love the last episode of Frontier in Space (Frontier in Space: Episode Six (1973)). Isn't that one of the great Doctor Who (1963) episodes ever? Because you've got everything in that.

Patrick Troughton is one of the most extraordinary actors, just his delicacy, his ability to jump from being irate to being kindly and clownish.

My adolescence was a kind of motorway pile-up. I wish I had known that one day the geek would inherit the Earth.