Doctor Who: 20 Things You Didn't Know About The Ninth Doctor

10. Martin Clunes Was Considered For The Role

Doctor Who the Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston
BBC

It's fairly common knowledge that Hugh Grant was considered for the role of the Ninth Doctor before Eccleston was cast, but someone else who was also quite high on Russell T Davies' list was British TV star Martin Clunes.

In Doctor Who Magazine #551, Davies and Steven Moffat discuss the casting process for the Ninth Doctor, and during this conversation, Moffat mentions that Clunes was being considered by Davies.

While he's most famous for shows like Men Behaving Badly and Doc Martin, Clunes actually appeared in Doctor Who way back in 1983 - his first major TV gig - in the Fifth Doctor serial Snakedance. With some very questionable earrings.

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Contributor

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.