David Tennant has revealed that his return to Doctor Who came about accidentally.
The Scots actor announced his return to the BBC sci-fi show for the 60th Anniversary special earlier this year, alongside Catherine Tate who played Donna Noble. Tennant, 51, told BBC News, that "this all started" when he took part in Doctor Who: Lockdown! a series of online "watch-alongs" designed to pass the time during the pandemic, "when everyone was locked in their house".
Tennant played the iconic 10th Doctor from 2005-2010 before Matt Smith took over the titular role. Now, the actor has revealed that the plans for him to return to the role came around very organically after Catherine's suggestion.
Speaking of the watch alongs, he said: "At a certain time and day everyone would press play on a certain episode and some of the people who had been involved in those episodes were Tweeting along," he said, adding: "I don't Tweet but my wife helped me!"
It was during these events that he first spoke about the idea of a return with showrunner Russell T Davies and former co-star Catherine Tate. "[We] were just having a text exchange and Catherine said, 'Wouldn't it be fun to do it again?'" he revealed.
"Russell said, 'We could do a one-off, maybe they'd let us.' We said, 'Yeah that would be a laugh,' and then it all went quiet."
It was some time later when Davies got in touch again with the news that he was set to return as showrunner.
"Suddenly Russell let us know that he was taking over the show again and he would be back fully in charge and would we come and play a little bit for him?" Tennant said. "So I don't know if we gave him the idea to take Doctor Who back but certainly we thought if he's doing it, we can't let these young people have all the fun."
Current Doctor Jodie Whitaker is all set for her final episode to air later this year, before Scots Rwandan actor Ncuti Gatwa takes over as the next time lord. Speaking of Gatwa, Tennent heaped praise on the Sex Education star telling the BBC that: "Ncuti is brilliant,"
He continued: "He's a lovely, lovely man and he's full of beans and he's really talented. I mean he's like scary-talented. So I'm thrilled for every Doctor Who fan for what's to come and I include myself in that number."
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