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

15. Eccleston Approached RTD About Playing The Role

Doctor Who Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston
BBC Studios

Considering how much Eccleston has spoken about the poor experience he had while making Doctor Who, it might surprise you to learn that it was actually him who approached Russell T Davies about playing the Doctor in the first place.

You'd expect it to be the other way round, but apparently, it was Eccleston who emailed Davies and asked to be considered for the role, a move that clearly paid off – quite literally!

One of the reasons Eccleston was so keen to play the Doctor was that he had never done anything like it before, including all the comedy associated with the role. He said:

"There's also the challenge for me of the comic element to the Doctor's character. I hadn't done a great deal of comedy before and I wanted to try that."

When you consider that Eccleston was mainly known for gritty dramas at the time, it's actually not a surprise that he wanted to stretch his legs a bit.

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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. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. 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!