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Not as many people watch 'Doctor Who' as watch the Super Bowl, obviously, but the tropes that attract nerds are no longer a secret cult. It's a much larger culture, in the specific sense.
I don't remember 'Doctor Who' not being part of my life, and it became a part of growing up, along with The Beatles, National Health spectacles, and fog. And it runs deep. It's in my DNA.
My concept of a 'Doctor Who' girl was that you screamed a lot and ran around quarries in unsuitable footwear. Of course you fell over and twisted your ankle, because you had high heels on.
But there are still so many other roles that I would love to play, and hopefully I'm in a position after 'Doctor Who' to be a bit choosier about which ones I do. I want to play Wonder Woman.
Being in 'Doctor Who' has been so amazing. I don't think I will ever have a job quite so fun ever again. I feel sad because I am going to leave, but with any story, it has to come to an end.
I'm really not an actor of any kind. I've always seen myself as an entertainer, someone who makes people laugh. That's all I've ever wanted to do. 'Doctor Who' has always just been me, really.
We started watching 'Doctor Who' as a family because our first daughter was a cranky baby, and she would get up during the night - and it was her dad's job to stay up because I worked at night.
Genuinely my big thing and the reason I'm in 'The Miser' is because I always ask myself one simple question when I'm offered anything: Will it get me nearer to being 'Doctor Who' or further away?
Before I got Doctor Who, I went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I went back to take the final grade exam, which is the grade you have to take before you can take the teacher's diploma.
Filming 'Doctor Who' is so incredibly different to 'Spooks.' Near to the surface, there's quite a silly atmosphere. A lot of the times, you're on the verge of giggles because it's so over the top.
'Doctor Who' is not as literary as 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' is - books have come out, but they are from the television episodes. So there is that difference... it's more scholastic.
I do actually like performing to a live audience. I like the response. I do a lot of Doctor Who conventions now, and the reason that I do them is that there is a live audience I can get to directly.
On 'Love Actually,' I met Hugh Grant, who is a relative: our great-grandmothers were sisters. He'd call me cousin and ruffle my hair. And it was brilliant working with David Tennant on 'Doctor Who.'
I love 'The Wire'. I can't think of a television show that I think is superior to it in any way. I was obsessed with it from the moment it came on the air. I do also love 'Doctor Who' and 'Get Smart'.
I think the nice thing about 'Doctor Who' is whether people like it or don't like it, somewhere, someone loves you and will always love you - and the more everyone hates you, the more they'll love you.
Every two weeks on 'Doctor Who,' the set is completely different, the world is different and there are new actors coming in. So, it's constantly surprising, and it's a pressure that you relish, actually.
So actually, for me, 'Doctor Who,' you want it to be the show with all the emotions and all the feels, really, and that you've had a good emotional workout, from laughter to tears to fear and excitement.
It's hard work, 'Doctor Who,' but let's be frank about it, I'm fortunate to be rewarded in the ways that I am. I don't just mean financially, I mean the nature of the part and everything that comes with it.
I'm from New Orleans, and we have a Mardi Gras group called the Chewbacchus. It's celebrating all things geeky: science fiction, fantasy, 'Star Wars,' 'Doctor Who,' 'Men in Black,' 'Ghostbusters,' everything.
If I could film, we'd film every episode of 'Doctor Who' in New York. I have an affinity with the city. It has some wonderful locations and it is devastatingly vast and huge. Central Park looks amazing on camera.
I grew up in Michigan and - where to start? I mean, my dad was a doctor who worked at a jail. He was more like a jail administrator. My mom was a public school teacher. There's no artists in my family whatsoever.
I loved making it but when I saw it, I thought, 'Oh my God. I'm a big green lizard running around Cardiff? Is that it?' It's nice to have been in 'Doctor Who' but that is regarded by fans as the worst episode ever.
I can go on for hours about how 'Doctor Who' is a portal fantasy writ across the stars, how the companions are falling down the rabbit hole over and over again forever, tumbling head over heels into mystery. Hours.
We have 'Doctor Who' references on 'Futurama,' but we have a lot of science fiction references that I don't get; but in the staff we have experts on 'Star Trek,' 'Star Wars,' 'Doctor Who' and 'Dungeons and Dragons.'
This is ridiculous, I mean, wholly ridiculous. It never did any child any harm to have something that was a tiny bit above them anyway, and I claim that anyone who can follow Doctor Who can follow absolutely anything.
If you look at 'Doctor Who,' it's a Time Lord in a blue box who travels around the universe. It's a silly concept, but it's one of the most brilliant, emotional experiences because it's sort of about what is humanity.
I happened to see a really old 'Doctor Who', the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, and he'd picked up a Scotsman from 1745. It was an 18 or 19-year-old man who appeared in a kilt, and I thought, 'That's rather fetching.'
I'm a huge fan of 'Buffy,' 'Angel' and 'Doctor Who.' People like Joss Whedon, Russell T. Davies, and Steven Moffat are really amazing about making you feel like you had a complete meal and yet leaving you hungry for more.
I was diagnosed with ADHD twice. I didn't believe the first doctor who told me, and I had a whole theory that ADHD was just something they invented to make you pay for medicine, but then the second doctor told me I had it.
I was really so excited when it came back on air and I saw all three of the actors who played 'Doctor Who' in the new version and they've all been absolutely brilliant in their own special way, as all the Doctors always are.
There's still a part of me that believes what was great about 'Doctor Who' in the early days was that you had a superhero who didn't wear his underpants on the outside of his trousers, who used his brain rather than his brawn.
But the calibre of actors that they attract to come and do the guest leads on 'Doctor Who' is fantastic. You weigh it up, and in this series alone, there's Hugh Bonneville, Frances Barber, David Walliams. Toby Jones has done it.
I'm telling you, as a doctor who spent about half of his time in the office taking care of our seniors on Medicare, it is a program that intentions to work are much better than the way it's working today in terms of practicality.
It's one thing getting the job of Doctor Who, which is wonderful. And then the next thing they say to you is, 'We're going to announce it live on television!' And you think, 'That's not exactly what I thought I was signing up for!'
What I've found I really like about sci-fi is it can look at philosophical questions about humanity but in a different context. It can really make you think. That's what 'Doctor Who' does, even if it's a bit silly some other times.
I was a big fan of 'Star Trek.' But then again, you know, 'Star Trek', 'Star Wars', 'Doctor Who', I wasn't a big fan, but you know, when they ask you and they cast you and it drops in your lap, how can you say no to these franchises.
Back in the day, years ago, in 1988, the only TV I watched was 'Doctor Who' because I had children and two full-time jobs, and 'Doctor Who' was the exact length of time it took to do my nails, so I would watch 'Doctor Who' once a week!
The Americans think British T.V. shows are amazing, and everybody references 'Downton Abbey', and, in my genre, 'Doctor Who', which everyone is crazy for. People are always asking me and are always disappointed that I haven't been in it.
It may seem like hindsight now, but I just knew that 'Doctor Who' was going to be an enormous success. Don't ask me how. Not everybody thought as I did. I was universally scoffed at for my initial faith in the series, but I believed in it.
When I was a kid, I wrote to the BBC, and the producers sent me a huge package through the post with 'Doctor Who' scripts. I'd never even seen a script and couldn't believe that they actually wrote this stuff down. It sort of opened a door.
I'll always be grateful for what 'Doctor Who' has given me. I go to quite a few fan conventions. It's lovely to hang out with people you worked with so long ago. And, more than that, it's made me aware of the impact that television can have.
I am a massive 'Doctor Who' fan, and my favourite doctor was David Tennant, so if we could go back in time to that era and I could be somewhere in the background, that would be great. I would even stick myself inside a Dalek just to be there.
I must say that when I left 'Doctor Who,' I was filled with... not loathing, but I was incredibly annoyed because I wanted to do more television and films and the only thing that people could ever see me in was a recreation of what I had done.
I have never described the time I was in Doctor Who as anything except a kind of ecstatic success, but all the rest has been rather a muddle and a disappointment. Compared to Doctor Who, it has been an outrageous failure really - it's so boring.
I've tried to start my kids on 'Doctor Who,' but they're just not there yet. Someone had given me these TARDIS stick-em notes, so I gave them to Tucker, and he finally put them all over his locker. I'm like, 'You're the coolest fifth grader, ever!'
I went to one doctor who told me I wasn't exercising enough. I was so exhausted, I couldn't raise my arm. When this doctor called it psychosomatic, I was enraged. To think the constant sore throat and swollen glands were all in my head was infuriating.
The big reason that 'Doctor Who' is still with us is that every single viewer who ever turned in to watch this show, at any age, at any time in its history, took it into their heart - because 'Doctor Who' belongs to all of us. Everyone made 'Doctor Who.'
I liked lots of 'Doctor Who' books, but my favourite tale was a spooky story about two invalid children - who've never met in the real world - who get trapped in a shared dreamscape when they fall asleep. It's called 'Marianne Dreams' by Catherine Storr.
But I think whenever you're bringing in a new Doctor, you have to set it up in a really great way because it's an entry point for a whole audience. Because the audience of 'Doctor Who' is everyone from eight to 108, life is continually creating new viewers.
Watching 'Doctor Who' in the United States meant I was always behind the times - PBS didn't get new episodes until two years after they ran, and I was aware of the show's cancellation before the characters themselves knew, at least in my corner of the world.