8 Actors Who Regretted Leaving Doctor Who

2. Paul McGann

Paul McGann Doctor Who
BBC Studios

While Paul McGann didn't have a say when it came to the end of his Doctor Who tenure, he still has some regrets about how the whole situation went down.

Easily one of the most underappreciated Doctors of all time (seriously, that outfit is a work of art), McGann's stint behind the TARDIS controls lasted for just a single television movie, which - due to some low ratings - was not picked up for a full series.

It was an unfortunate turn of events, and while McGann did nothing wrong, he still feels regretful about the premature end of his Doctor Who era, and in a chat with The Independent, he unabashedly admitted that continuing to play the Eighth Doctor would've had a very lucrative impact on his career:

"[Doctor Who] could've been very different. I would've been there for five or six years... and I'd have earned a s**t-load of dough. Life wouldn't have been the same but it didn't happen."

The 1996 TV movie wasn't the end of McGann's Doctor Who career: he starred in his very own 50th anniversary mini-episode, as well as appearing in countless Big Finish audio dramas. Still, it's hard not to feel a little bit sorry for him, considering that this role of a lifetime was cut short due to factors outside his control.

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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!