All eyes were on BBC One this past Sunday evening as the successor to Matt Smith on the hit sci-fi show Doctor Who would be announced. Every young British actor, from Benedict Cumberbatch to Tom Hiddleston, seemed to be in the running for the part of the Twelfth Doctor, but to the surprise of nearly everyone it went to 55 year-old Scottish actor Peter Capaldi.
He's been around a while, but you may not know a whole lot about him. Let us fill you in.
"Clusterfuck"
Before becoming the Twelfth Doctor, Peter Dougan Capaldi was most well-known for playing a spin doctor on BBC comedy series The Thick Of It. The Scot won two British Comedy Awards for Best Television Actor during his four seasons on the show.
The foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker character is probably best associated with bringing the word ‘clusterfuck’ into the lexicon.
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“I am Doctor fucking Who.”
Crossing your own timeline is tricky business
Only in Doctor Who could this happen: Capaldi once appeared in an episode of the show years before grabbing the lead role!
In 2008, his character Caecilius is in fact saved by The Doctor in ‘The Fires Of Pompeii’. This is also the episode that Karen Gillan appeared in before later becoming the Doctor’s companion.
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So does that mean he saved himself? Time travel is so confusing.
To make matters even more baffling, Capaldi featured in series three of Doctor Who spin-off show Torchwood!
He played alongside fellow Scotsman John Barrowman as John Frobisher, a loyal but tragic secretary to the home office, in five episodes of the critically-acclaimed ‘Children Of Earth’ season.
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Doctor W.H.O.?
As you would expect, Whovians have been pouring over Capaldi’s impressive CV, stretching back three decades, ever since the Twelfth Doctor announcement, to either look at his previous work or find querky coincidences.
For example, Capaldi played a doctor in several shows, such as Fortysomething, Donovan and Getting On, played a journalist known as Dr Pete in The Field Of Blood, as well as a time traveller in 1994 on The All New Alexei Sayle Show.
The most striking and weird one of all, however, has to come from a part that he played very recently in Brad Pitt’s zombie affair, World War Z, in which he is a doctor for the World Health Organisation.
This is how the part comes up on the film encyclopedia site IMDb...
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Coincidence?
"Dear Daleks..."
Turns out Capaldi was a raging Who fan back in his youth, so much so he wrote this adorable letter to Radio Times forty years ago.
With a name like that...
...you’d wonder where Capaldi’s roots lie! Born in Glasgow, his father’s family was from Picinisco, Italy, hence the surname, while his mother’s family was from Killeshandra, County Cavan, in none other than Ireland.
So there you have it: we can stake a claim to the new Doctor!
