Biography

September 29, 1961 · London, England, UK

6′ 1¼″ (1.86 m)

The only actor to have acted in all the final TV stories of the first three 21st century Doctor Whos: The Parting of the Ways (2005) (Christopher Eccleston), The End of Time: Part Two (2010) (David Tennant) and The Time of the Doctor (2013) (Matt Smith).

He is the only actor to play both the "Doctor Who" character the Doctor and supply the voices of his greatest enemy, the Daleks. He played the former in numerous Audio Visuals audio dramas as well as the Big Finish audio drama Exile. He also played a man named Gideon Crane who mistakenly believed himself to be the Doctor in the Big Finish audio drama Minuet in Hell. He regularly supplies the voices of the Daleks in numerous audio dramas and episodes of Doctor Who (2005).

He is an alumnus of the drama school Rose Bruford College, which he has in common with former Doctor Who (1963) star Tom Baker.

Doctor Who (2005) is deceptively difficult to write. I think people think it's easy. It's not. It's very difficult to get right.

I loved the Daleks. They did scare me when I was a tiddler... But I was mostly fascinated by them. I think the Cybermen did scare me more, largely because they were very quiet in those days. They said very little and you couldn't hear them coming.

My favourite Doctor was and is Patrick Troughton. He epitomises for me what I think the strength of the show is. He looks a bit scary, but is massively kind and reassuring. That's what the programme is. He was such a great actor and so funny too, but with the weight to be able to do the dramatic stuff.

My favourite Dalek voice is Peter Hawkins, who was the main guy on those first Dalek stories. Working alongside him was David Graham. Both of them have great vocal pedigrees. Peter was 'the' voice of the 60s; he was Captain Pugwash, he was Tony the Tiger and on just about every public information film or TV commercial, it seemed. David Graham was, of course, the voice of Brains and Parker - m'lady - in Thunderbirds (1965). Peter had that wonderful, insistent quality to his voice. David brought a kind of disturbing edge to it. Then the lovely Roy Skelton came along with his uniquely gravelly voice. Those are the three who have influenced me the most. I feel I've kind of absorbed their work by endlessly watching it and listening to it, then I've taken it in my own direction; but much of what I do owes an awful lot to those chaps.