10. He Trained To Be A Footballer
No... seriously! Don't let the picture above fool you, and if you thought that the Matt Smith was pretty nifty - *ahem* - with the football in Series 5's The Lodger, then it's probably because he is. Believe it or not, but Matt was actually training to become a professional footballer before a serious back injury forced him to put his sporting career indefinitely on hold. It's a shame, really, because he was shaping up to be a formidable contender on the pitch after playing for the youth teams of Northampton Town, Nottingham Forest and Leicester City. It just wasn't meant to be, however, and, with all this new found spare time suddenly on his hands (or, more appropriately, his feet), Matt chose to purse his other ambition, acting. It wasn't long until he landed his first stage role in a production of Twelve Angry Men, which his drama teacher signed him up for without his consent, and he subsequently joined the National Youth Theatre in London before graduating in Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in 2005. He'd been bitten by the acting bug and there was no turning back.
Dan Butler
Doctor Who Editor
Dan Butler is the Doctor Who Editor at WhatCulture.com. When he isn't writing his own articles or editing other people's, he can be found trawling the internet for gifs of Steven Moffat laughing. Contact him via dan.butler@whatculture.co.uk.
See more from
Dan