Peter Capaldi has revealed that he turned down the chance to be in ‘Doctor Who’ almost 20 years ago.
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Peter, who took over the role of the Time Lord from Matt Smith earlier this year, had been a long-standing Whovian, but didn’t take the opportunity to audition for the show when it first presented itself because he didn’t want to be rejected.
Speaking at a Q&A session, ahead of the DVD release of the latest series of ‘Doctor Who’, he revealed: “I knew I wouldn’t get it… I just didn’t want to have the disappointment, and go through all the palaver of jumping through hoops for something that I would never get.”
Peter Capaldi
Instead, the role went to Paul McGann, who portrayed the Eighth Doctor in a 1996 television film.
The TV film had been intended to provide a springboard to re-launch the sci-fi series in America, though sadly it wasn’t to be, and it took almost a decade before ‘Doctor Who’ returned to the small screen, with Christopher Eccleston at the helm.
Peter elaborated: “I knew it was an American pilot thing, and I knew they would go for somebody who was well known, which Paul was.
“I loved the show so much that I didn’t want to have anything to do with it unless it was, unless it was gonna be me!”
Earlier this month, it was reported that over 100 angry viewers had complained over a scene in the latest series of ‘Doctor Who’, where a character claimed that dead bodies could feel pain when they were cremated.