5. Rory Kinnear
Look, I know weve already had the big song and dance about whether Rory Kinnear will be the Doctor and the guys come and flat-out denied it, and it wouldnt be the first time an emphatic no has been turned around in Telly-land. After all, theres a reason rumours refuse to die, so thats why hes in this list. The fact of the matter is that Kinnear would be a great choice for the Twelfth Doctor hes a very talented man who has a huge and varied CV and possesses the correct balance between youth and experience. The guys only 35, yet looks wise beyond his years and can produce personal gongs on command including an Olivier Award to mark him out as an extremely talented man. I think there are two main traits other than his obvious acting chops that mark Kinnear out as an outstanding candidate for the Doctor. Firstly, hes straddles the fence between being intellectual and possessing that illusive everyman quality. Writers have made use of this in the past, most notably when he portrayed a put-upon Prime Minister forced to have sex with a pig in Charlie Brookers Black Mirror, or in his role as Ms assistant Tanner in the Bond franchise where he appears to be the only man who knows just how daft all Bonds adventures are. After three series of otherworldly-looking Smith, having someone a bit more normal might prove a bold new step for the series. The second reason is that hes just quintessentially British his father Roy was a member of the British acting establishment, he read English at Oxford and was considered British enough to take part in a James Bond film. Make no mistake, though Doctor Who is primarily concerned with an extra-terrestrial super-alien, theres always an unmistakably British feel to everything and casting a man who embodies the country might help continue that lovable quirk.