How Every Doctor Who Got Cast

The short version of how Jodie Whittaker was cast as the Thirteenth Doctor is that she had worked with Chris Chibnall on Broadchurch. But it's a bit more complicated than that.

Doctor Who was never on Whittaker's mind, even when Chibnall contacted her for a meeting. She assumed it was to discuss the final season of Broadchurch, and was surprised when Doctor Who was brought up!

The actress was then put through months of auditions, reading specially-designed script pages to test whether she could handle the Doctor's many sides. She recorded a self-tape where she pretended to defuse a device – a typical Doctor scenario – and successfully bagged the role.

Several other mystery actresses also auditioned. Rumours emerged prior to Peter Capaldi's final series that he would be replaced with Tilda Swinton or Phoebe Waller-Bridge, which obviously never came to pass.

Whatever the truth of those rumours was, Chibnall has stated that he was always going to cast a female Doctor, and that Jodie Whittaker was always his number one choice.