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

10. Martin Clunes Was Considered For The Role

Doctor Who Snakedance Martin Clunes
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 recalls that Clunes was being strongly considered at one stage.

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.

Contributor
Contributor

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. 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!