10 Actors With Multiple Roles In Doctor Who

2. David Tennant

Doctor Who David Tennant Colditz
BBC/Panini Comics

First Role: Feldwebel Kurtz (Colditz)

Second Role: The Tenth Doctor (The Parting of the Ways - The End of Time)

A little bit of a cheat this one, but still, it is true that David Tennant has more than one role in the Doctor Who world.

All the way back in 2001, the actor lent his pipes to the Big Finish audio drama Colditz, playing German officer Feldwebel Kurtz. This story followed the Seventh Doctor and his companion Ace, as they encountered Nazis in World War II-era Germany.

But that's not all. In 2003, Tennant had a tiny role as "Caretaker" in the animated story Scream of the Shalka, which was released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the show. Here, Richard E. Grant played the Ninth Doctor, although this numbering was later wiped out by Christopher Eccleston. However, Scream of the Shalka has never been officially struck from canon, and in light of The Timeless Children, it could always be considered one of the Doctor's many, many lives.

After hopping between animated and audio-based dramas, Tennant, of course, went on to play the Tenth Doctor, in what is widely considered to be one of the best eras in the show's long history. Technically, he also had a "second" role during this time too, when an untimely regeneration resulted in the creation of a duplicate Doctor.

After regenerating properly in The End of Time: Part 2, Tennant returned as the Tenth Doctor for the 50th anniversary special in 2013. So, if he returns for the 60th anniversary in 2023, Tennant will have featured in three consecutive Doctor Who anniversary celebrations. How about that.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!