Ncuti Gatwa, who stars as the Fifteenth Doctor in the new season of Doctor Who, makes history as the first Black Doctor in the long-running franchise, and is opening up about dealing with race in the series.
“I think that there would be no way to not, you have to address race,” Gatwa told The Hollywood Reporter at the show’s Los Angeles premiere on Wednesday. “This is the first time the Doctor has been Black for this long and he tends to spend most of his time on Earth, it’s a favorite of his, and so yeah, it would be essential to explore race within his tenure.”
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“It’s something that I would want to do and like I don’t think you could ignore it,” the star added, teasing, “You can’t ignore my chocolate-ness, so we’re not going to ignore it.”
When his casting was first announced, Gatwa was forced to deal with racist and homophobic backlash in joining the 60-year-old universe. At Wednesday’s premiere, he revealed that Jodie Whittaker — who played the Thirteenth Doctor, marking the first female star — was there with advice.
“Jodie Whittaker, who very famously brought down barriers before me, the first female Doctor, just gave me a lot of advice on how to handle all the difference of opinions that might come your way, and just handling the pressure off screen,” Gatwa said. “It’s an institution of a role and when you’re stepping in as someone that’s not been what people are expecting, let’s say, you’re going to get a lot of opinions in your face and she just helped me manage that.”
The Disney+ series follows The Doctor and his companion Ruby Sunday (played by Millie Gibson) as they travel across time and space, with adventures spanning from the Regency era in England to future worlds in the famous TARDIS time machine. Gatwa named the Regency and ’60s time periods as his favorites, saying, “those costumes were so much fun.”
Doctor Who starts streaming Friday on Disney+.
Anaja Smith contributed to this report.
