Ncuti Gatwa on becoming the latest Time Lord on Doctor Who

Ncuti Gatwa was about to get a haircut when his agent called to share some good news: he had landed the role as the next Time Lord on the long-running hit show Doctor Who.

"My mouth dropped and I was like, 'I'm going to have to call you back," Gatwa recalls in a conversation with Q's Tom Power. "'I've got so much washing to do at home. I can't deal with this huge concept that you've put into my head!'"

Gatwa, who's also known for playing Eric Effiong on the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education, says the iconic role simply felt out of reach for him at that time in his career. He jokes that becoming the Fifteenth Doctor felt "out of this world."

The actor remembers watching Doctor Who back in 2005 after the show was rebooted.

"It was the number one show," he says. "It was all anyone spoke about week to week. Then David Tennant took over and it exploded even more. I just knew of it as being something that everyone loved in the U.K., and it being something that people generations above me knew about and loved as well."

Despite the show being a pop culture institution in Britain, Gatwa has no shame in saying he didn't realize how "sick" it was until he brushed up on it before his audition. "It's just so heartwarming," he tells Power. "I just loved how it changed from week to week. It's a thriller one week, then it's a horror and then it's a comedy — it just encapsulated everything. There's not a show like this on TV and I can't believe I haven't been more invested in it."

As a Black queer man, Gatwa says the compassion in Doctor Who made for a type of joyful escapism that really drew him in.

"The doctor as a character in himself leads with compassion and fights with compassion," he says. "A lot of shows can be very doom and gloom and we love that as well. We gravitate towards that, but there's something special and unique about this hopeful, positive show that deals with dark stuff and tragedy as well, but it's got this joy running through its veins."

Gatwa adds that the show is inclusive of everyone and speaks to many marginalized people. "You're able to watch the show and anyone is able to be like, 'Do you know what? I would like to hop into that Tardis with that mad scientist and pop to Mars, have a little adventure on Mars. Why not?'"

The full interview with Ncuti Gatwa is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Ncuti Gatwa produced by Ben Edwards.