David Tennant nearly passed on the role that would become one of the most iconic of his career. Speaking on a new episode of David Tennant Does a Podcast With…, the actor revealed that when he was first offered the part of the Doctor in Doctor Who, he was advised by his then-agent to stay away.
Hosting the episode was Tennant’s wife, Georgia Tennant, who recalled how her husband was first approached for the role back in 2005. At the time, Tennant was working on the miniseries Casanova, which was executive produced by Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner — the same team behind the revived Doctor Who.
According to Georgia, the producers invited Tennant over to watch some of the upcoming season, and then dropped the big question: "And then they go, 'Guess what? Do you want to play [the Doctor]?'" she said. "And you pretend to think about it for like a day or something?"
Tennant corrected her, saying it actually took him about 40 hours to decide, adding that he had to weigh the implications carefully. "There was definitely a moment where I wasn’t [going to do it]," he said. "About 40 hours after they asked me, and I sort of had to process everything that it meant." He also revealed that his agent at the time warned him against taking the role.
"She said, 'Don’t touch it. It’s not going to work. You don’t want that hung around your neck,'" Tennant recalled. "Not my current agent. A previous brilliant agent who’s since retired, but she didn’t call that correctly, as it turns out."
Tennant, of course, went on to become one of the most beloved incarnations of the Doctor, portraying the Tenth Doctor from 2005 to 2010. In a full-circle moment, he returned in 2023 as the Fourteenth Doctor for the show's 60th anniversary specials — cementing his legacy within the long-running BBC sci-fi series.
