3. The Ninth Doctor - Bill Nighy
When the BBC announced, in September 2003, that Doctor Who would be returning to Saturday nights, the British tabloids began to throw up a series of names that seemed superficially Doctor-ish, like Alan Davies, or just plain ridiculous, like TV magician Paul Daniels. When Christopher Eccleston was eventually announced, many were surprised (not least the Daily Mail, which had broken the casting of the Ninth Doctor in the most inept way possible - by announcing the wrong actor!). It later emerged that Bill Nighy had been offered the part although he refused to say when. Its reasonable to assume, however, that he was a front-runner for the Ninth Doctor. The Daily Mail were certainly confident enough to publish the rumour as fact in their early edition on Saturday 20th March 2004, and they werent alone. The Daily Star splashed the news across their front page too, only for both newspapers to be proven massively wrong when Eccleston was announced later that day. While Nighy could have plausibly played the Doctor, casting an eccentric middle aged man in the part wouldve been too easy. Eccleston offered a dramatic break with the shows past and its hard to imagine the new series having as much of an impact without him. Nighy eventually appeared as the gallery curator in Richard Curtis Vincent and the Doctor (above) and having stated recently that he has no interest in playing a character with such immense baggage, thats probably as close as hell ever get.