Doctor Who: 10 Actors Who Almost Played Different Characters

5. Jenna Coleman

Doctor Who Silhouette
BBC

Who She Almost Played: Mels

Who She Actually Played: Clara Oswald

Jenna Coleman is one of the longest-serving actresses in modern Who, first appearing in September 2012's Asylum Of The Daleks as Oswin Oswald, and finally departing in the 2017 Christmas special, playing Clara one last time - in a cameo - and bidding farewell to Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor.

It's one hell of a legacy, and Coleman will be associated with Doctor Who for the rest of her life. This in mind, she's probably quite relieved that her earlier brush with the Whoniverse didn't end with her landing the part.

Before Clara, Coleman first auditioned for the role of Mels, a character with a small arc in the 2011 episode Let's Kill Hitler. Mels is the best friend of Amy and Rory, but a plot twist early in the story reveals that she's also a previous regeneration of the River Song we all know and love. Spoilers.

Apparently, Coleman's grandma was devastated when she didn't get the role, so the Clara news must've been received pretty ecstatically in the Coleman household.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.