by Matt Sernaker, Managing Editor
Doctor Who is back at Comic-Con for 2017, and ComicsOnline is pleased to share this very special interview with outgoing 12th Doctor himself, Peter Capaldi! Peter discussed the emotional resonance of his final season, the legacy that he leaves behind, the responsibility of being The Doctor, and more! Check out the interview below:
Question: There were a lot of emotional moments this last season, parts that were bringing me to tears. With knowing that you were going to be leaving the show, did any of this fuel the way that you played the character?
PC: I think that is what often happens in the show. Perhaps in shows generally. If characters are saying goodbye to each other, they often articulate those emotions better than the actors as human beings do. So we often say goodbye to each other through the lines that the characters use. Their scenes become avatars for our own feelings. So yeah. It is emotional. All of us felt that.
Question: You’ve done so much for the fans that “not in the contract”. Do you feel that there’s more to being The Doctor than just showing up on set? Like an added responsibility?
PC: I think that there is clearly a responsibility, which is very easy to address because people don’t really ask very much of you. They just want you to show up and be nice and smile at them. Actually, that’s an incredibly pleasant place to be, on the other side of that. As a kid, I loved Doctor Who. I wouldn’t have liked to have met Doctor Who and found him to be rather unpleasant or preoccupied or rude. It doesn’t take much to be friendly.
Question: This year it seemed that you were more of a Teacher. Taking trips and actually instructing and doing lecturing. Every year do you sit down with the writers to say, “this is how I want to portray The Doctor”?
PC: No. No, I just wait for the scripts to show up. I just try to think of a way to act them. I’m not really involved in any writing. I guess I could be if I wanted to. So often times it’s not really about lines but the spaces in between lines and the expressions on people’s faces and their relationships. I think you can tell your own story, or a story that you’re interested in, even if the lines don’t necessarily point me in that direction. I just try and do what’s right for the story.
Question: As a musician, were you happy to see The Doctor get to explore is musical side?
PC: Yeah. I’m not really a musician, but I thought it would be funny if The Doctor could play guitar. I actually wanted to play him as a teenager. I just wanted him to have a big Marshall stack with all these valves that he had made himself and a guitar that he had made himself and it was just full of feedback. It would be funny to have the TARDIS spinning through space and hear these power chords coming out of it. But then it developed into something else, because every time I watched the show he was suddenly shredding. He is a much better guitar player than I am. (laughs).
Question: So as I understand, you filmed the Regeneration on your final day of shooting. What was that like?
PC: It was going to say it was great. It was great because we spent the whole day doing it and it’s quite a big scene. We didn’t short change it. Its obviously emotional and you are saying goodbye to the people that you’ve been working with for nearly four years. That’s tough. A lot of people also came to visit. They decided that THAT was a great day to come and see what was happening. I didn’t mind that and it was lovely. I felt that Steven had written something that was very beautiful and very right for my Doctor. I was just happy to try and do my best with it.
Question: Why do you think that now is a good time for you to stop being The Doctor?
PC: I don’t think that I could carry on and give it my best shot.
…
Special thanks to BBC and Peter Capaldi for this interview.
The 12th Doctor returns this Christmas for his final installment! Be sure to check back to ComicsOnline for more SDCC coverage, exclusive interviews, and everything geek pop culture!
