Top Ten Actors who should play Doctor Who
First off, yes we know his name isn’t “Doctor Who” it’s “The Doctor”, but if there’s one thing we love more than being nerds, it’s baiting nerds, so hopefully you’re good and riled. Great, you’ll need that passion for vigorously agreeing with our choices (or hating us even more).
#10 – Peter Capaldi
(The Gruff Doctor)
Best known for being a crazy swearing Scotsman in In the Loop, Capaldi might not seem like in intuitive choice for the last of the Time Lords, but we’ve been having rather a series of nice, friendly chummy Doctors. Christopher Eccleston was the last one with any real backbone, and I think it’s about time we had a gruff, slightly abrasive Doctor, which Peter Capaldi would be brilliant at. Of course the doctor would, deep down, have two hearts of gold, which we have confidence the Glagow terror could pull off.
Ideal Companion: Jessica Hynes
To really highlight his amusing grumpiness and occasionally bring him out of his shell, Capaldi’s Doctor would need something of a gentle hippy by his side. This is a role Hynes has always excelled at, and they’d go together beautifully.
#9 – Damien Lewis
(The Ginger Doctor)
Before every regeneration, the Doctor hopes for just one thing: to come out ginger for once. So it’s about time he was ginger! Of course, Damien Lewis is a great actor and would make for a nice quirky doctor, but it’s mainly the ginger thing.
Ideal Companion: Anne-Marie Duff
She’s played a wide array of roles and excelled in all of them, particularly as Fiona in Shameless. Keeping everything together is what she does best, meaning she’s ready for whatever Doctor that carrot-top insanonaut turns out to be.
#8 – Idris Elba
(The Take-No-Shit Doctor)
Idris Elba is one of our favourite actors, he’s mainly known for playing gangsters who don’t take any shit, but he’s no stranger to fantasy: in 1999’s Ultraviolet he played a vampire hunter who didn’t take any shit. We reckon too much shit’s been taken by too many Doctors over the years, and we need someone to sort it out. That someone is Idris Elba.
Ideal Companion: Carey Mulligan
Carey Mulligan is lovely, a great actor and would definitely serve as a good counterpoint for Elba’s Doctor. Plus, she’s been in the series before as Sally Sparrow in Blink, generally considered the Best Episode. Bring back Sally, and put her in the goddamn TARDIS.
#7 – Tom Hardy
(The Hot Doctor)
Maybe the producers are after eye-candy though. They want a Doctor who’ll make the audience go weak at their cosmic knees. Well, if that’s the case, let’s make sure it’s one can really act. Enter Tom Hardy, sexy as all get-out and a damn fine actor to boot. We’ve no clue what his Doctor would be like, but we’d be too busy drooling to care.
Ideal Companion: Lisa Jackson
You probably won’t know Lisa Jackson: she’s not been major in much besides the recent Channel 4 comedy Campus, but we were impressed by how wonderfully she played up the geeky and awkward. You can’t not like her, and she’d be an excellent way to help contain Hardy’s smouldering.
#6 – Daniel Day-Lewis
(The Method Doctor)
We don’t know. You don’t know. But we desperately, DESPERATELY want to see Day-Lewis take his patented mad-as-fuck school of method acting and apply it to the Doctor. God knows what would happen, be it would be a hell of a ride.
Ideal Companion: Sophie Okonedo and Dara O’Briain
We want Sophie Okonedo there because, as another Doctor Who veteran, we’d love to see more of her future space-monarch Liz 10 (or as an entirely new character, she’s just really cool). As for Dara O’Briain, the vastness of Time and Space needs more funny Irish people. Why do we have two of them? Well, if Daniel Day-Lewis starts going off the rails, it’ll take at least two people to hold him down, and Dara’s a big guy.
#5 – Paterson Joseph
(The Smooth Doctor)
Whether he’s ruling the business world as Alan Johnson in Peepshow or flitting through the inside of Neil Gaiman’s head in Neverwhere, Paterson Joseph is so smooth he practically purrs. He’s got that perfect mix of arrogance, charisma and likeability that we haven’t seen in a Doctor since some of Colin Baker’s darker moments.
Ideal Companion: Felicia Day
Ok, ok, she’s a yank, fine. But then again so was Captain Jack. What we need is a nerd to balance the silver tongue of Paterson Joseph, and when it comes to being genuinely geeky, combined with deeply awesome, there are none finer the Felicia Day.
#4 – Jeremy Irons
(The Gravitas Doctor)
If anyone was going to look you in the eyes and tell you that the Earth was in imminent danger of destruction, Jeremy Irons is the one you would take seriously. He could proclaim the doom of planets, and we would believe him. No-one could encompass nearly a millennia of life spent saving the Universe as well as the magnificent Mr Irons.
Ideal Companion: Sophie Wu
Another relatively new face, Sophie’s main credits thus far run to Kick Ass and the excellent BBC 3 series The Fades. In all cases, though, she’s excellent and has that quirky innocence that would make sure that Doctor Irons could never fall too far into black abyss of the dramatic.
#3 – Bill Bailey
(The Mad Doctor)
What’s to explain? Bill Bailey’s basically from space already, Plus, with his TV and film experience getting more extensive by the month, there’s no doubt he’d be able to jump right into the vortex and start saving the galaxy in bizarre and brilliant ways.
Ideal Companion:James McAvoy
A lot have people have said he should play the Doctor, but he’s always been his best as the straight-man to weirdness, right from his Early Doors début. Just take a moment to imagine Bill Bailey running round on his latest mad scheme to stop the monster of the week, while James Mcavoy looks on with a “Uh… Doctor?” Genius.
#2 – Mark Heap
(The Adorable Doctor)
Mark Heap is an institution. Rarely, if ever, getting a leading role, his job is to periodically turn up in films and make them amazing for the few minutes he’s there. He plays just the right level of awkward, wise and slightly unstable to make him the best goddamn Doctor out there. As the TARDIS fails for the umpteenth time, he runs around, spinning dials going “Oh no! Ohnoohno!”
Ideal Companion: Lauren Socha
Best known as “The chavvy one from Misfits“, Lauren’s very good at characters that don’t stand for too much nonsense. This would be a great next role for her, keeping Mark Heap’s Doctor from falling apart with a firm hand a sharp tongue.
#1 – Tilda Swinton
(The Amazing Doctor)
If the Doctor is ever to be played by a woman (and whether or not he should is a debate we’re not getting into), there is no better choice from here to Gallifrey than Tilda Swinton. No, we don’t now what she’d be like, but we know she’d be unspeakably fantastic at it.
Ideal Companion: Simon Pegg
Because if you can think of a better idea than Tilda Swinton and Simon Pegg flying round the universe and fighting evil, then… well, to be honest, we don’t want to hear about it. Adventure awaits!
#10 Peter Capaldi, #5 Paterson Joseph? They should have been 1 and 2.