7 Actors Who Hated Being On Doctor Who

Right up front, we need to put a huge asterisk on this entry: Tom Baker absolutely loved the vast majority of the time he spent piloting the TARDIS.

But he didn't love all of it.

Towards the end of his seven-year tenure - which made him the longest-serving Doctor to date - the experience of making the show became less and less fulfilling for him, and in particular, Baker found his final season "unbearable" to work on.

This feeling of frustration towards the show began to manifest when producer John Nathan-Turner was put in charge in 1980. Baker and Nathan-Turner did not get along whatsoever, and Baker strongly disagreed with a lot of his boss's creative decisions, from the look of the Doctor's outfit to the quality of the writing.

In a surprisingly honest interview on the Doctor Who Season 12 blu-ray set (via Digital Spy), Baker didn't hold back when it came to describing his relationship with Nathan-Turner, flat-out admitting that he didn't like anything the producer did:

"His approach as a producer, to the scripts and to my performance… he managed somehow - how terrible - to diminish me. He made assumptions about how I should do things, or what lines meant, or how it should be shot, which diminished me, and I found that unbearable."

He concluded by saying that, eventually, Nathan-Turner's showrunning style wore him down so much, that it pushed him towards the exit door. And sure enough, Baker regenerated at the end of Nathan-Turner's first season in charge.

But this wouldn't be the last negative experience Baker had on a Doctor Who set. In 2013, the actor had a cameo in 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor, and while it was a joy to see him on-screen, it apparently wasn't such a joy to film.

In an interview on that same blu-ray set, Baker said that Matt Smith was the only person who paid him any interest, and that he was "a bit nettled" by the treatment he received behind-the-scenes. Maybe someone should've handed out the jelly babies?