Doctor Who: What Happened To Each Doctor After They Left The Show?

2. Matt Smith

Matt Smith Morbius Loxias Crown
Sony Pictures

Last Regular Episode: The Time Of The Doctor

With the exception of Karen Gillan, Matt Smith has had the biggest career a Doctor Who actor has ever enjoyed after leaving the show.

Immediately after dropping his bow tie at the end of 2013, he worked with Ryan Gosling in the movie Lost River, where he shaved his head and played a creep. Then, he had a major role in Terminator Genisys, which - while an awful film - was a hit at the box-office, making a healthy $440 million worldwide.

He also stole the show in horror-comedy Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, played Charles Manson in 2019's Charlie Says, and is set to have a massive year in 2020, with leading roles in Marvel Comics adaptation Morbius, and Edgar Wright's Last Night In Soho. He was also linked with Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker for a time, but that clearly didn't pan out too well.

On TV, his biggest post-Doctor Who role was easily The Crown, where he played Prince Philip for the first two seasons, and was even nominated for an Emmy. He also returned to Doctor Who for a quick cameo in Peter Capaldi's first full episode, Deep Breath, and has remained open to the possibility of appearing in another multi-Doctor story, should the BBC want him to.

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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!