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David Tennant

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David Tennant

<tr><td style="text-align:left;">Birth name</td><td>David McDonald</td></tr>

Born April 18 1971 (age 38)
Image:Flag of Scotland.svg Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland
Height 6'1" (1.85m)
Official site David-Tennant.com
Notable roles The Doctor in Doctor Who

David Tennant, the stage name of David McDonald, (born 18 April 1971) is a Scottish actor, from Bathgate in West Lothian. He is best known as the tenth actor to portray the Doctor in the television series Doctor Who.

Already a well-known theatre actor, he achieved wider fame in the United Kingdom for his TV roles in Casanova and Doctor Who. International audiences know him best for playing Barty Crouch Jr. in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

In December 2005, The Stage newspaper listed Tennant at #6 in its "Top Ten" listing of the most influential UK television artists of the year, citing his roles in Blackpool, Casanova, Secret Smile and Doctor Who.<ref>"The Stage 100 :: TV Ten", The Stage, 2005-12-29. Retrieved on 2006-01-03.</ref> In January 2006, some readers of the British gay and lesbian newspaper The Pink Paper voted Tennant the "Sexiest Man in the Universe" over David Beckham and Brad Pitt.<ref>"Dr Who Voted Sexiest Gay Icon", GayNZ.com, 2006-01-17. Retrieved on 2006-01-18.</ref> A poll of over 10,000 women for the March 2006 issue of New Woman magazine ranked him 20th in their list of the "Top 100 Men".<ref>Arifa Akbar and Elisa Bray. "Introducing world's sexiest men: Bloom, Pitt...and Cameron", The Independent, 2006-02-02. Retrieved on 2006-02-02.</ref>

Contents

[edit] Biography

Tennant was born in Bathgate, West Lothian<ref>http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm0855039/</ref>, but grew up in Ralston, Renfrewshire, where his father (the Rev Alexander (Sandy) McDonald) was the local Church of Scotland minister (and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1997). Tennant was educated at Ralston Primary, Paisley Grammar School, and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama where he was friends with Louise Delamere.

At the age of three, Tennant told his parents that he wanted to become an actor because he was mad about Doctor Who. Although such an aspiration might have been common for a Scottish child of the 1970s, Tennant says he was "absurdly single-minded" in pursuing his goal. He adopted the professional name "Tennant" — inspired by Neil Tennant, the lead singer of the Pet Shop Boys<ref>Shannon, Sarah. "David Tennant: His days of blissful anonymity are numbered", The Independent, 2005-12-07.</ref> — because there was another David McDonald already on the books of the actors' union Equity.

[edit] Career

Tennant as Barty Crouch Jr in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Tennant's first professional role upon graduating from drama school was in a staging of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui co-starring Ashley Jensen, one of several plays in which he performed as part of agitprop 7:84 Theatre Company.

Moving to London in the early 1990s, Tennant lodged with comic actress and writer Arabella Weir, with whom he became close friends and then godfather to one of her children. He has subsequently appeared alongside Weir in many productions; as a guest in her spoof television series, Posh Nosh; in the Doctor Who audio drama Exile and as panellists on the West Wing Ultimate Quiz on More4.

Tennant developed his career in the British theatre, frequently performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company for whom he specialised in comic roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It, Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors and Captain Jack Absolute in The Rivals, although he also played the tragic role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet.

Tennant appeared in several high-profile dramas for the BBC, including Takin' Over the Asylum (1994), He Knew He Was Right (2004), Blackpool (2004), Casanova (2005) and The Quatermass Experiment (2005). In film, he has appeared in Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things, and as Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. One of his earliest big screen roles was in Jude (1996), in which he shared a scene with his Doctor Who predecessor Christopher Eccleston, playing a drunken undergraduate who challenges Eccleston's Jude to prove his intellect.

[edit] Doctor Who

Image:Tenthdoctoralone.jpg

Tennant's name was put forward as a possible candidate for the role of the Ninth Doctor for the new series that began in March 2005, although the role eventually went to Christopher Eccleston. With Eccleston's announcement on 30 March that he would not be returning for a second series, the BBC confirmed Tennant as his replacement in a press release on 16 April. He made his first, brief appearance in the episode The Parting of the Ways (2005) after the regeneration scene, and also appeared in a special 7-minute mini-episode shown as part of the 2005 Children in Need appeal, broadcast on 18 November 2005.

He began filming the new series of Doctor Who in late July 2005. His first full-length outing as the Doctor was a sixty-minute special, The Christmas Invasion, first broadcast on Christmas Day 2005. He was also seen in early December in the ITV drama Secret Smile.

Tennant has expressed enthusiasm about fulfilling his childhood dream. He remarked to an interviewer for GWR FM, "Who wouldn't want to be the Doctor? I've even got my own TARDIS!"

Tennant had previously had a small role in the BBC's animated Doctor Who webcast Scream of the Shalka. Not originally cast in the production, Tennant happened to be recording a radio play in a neighbouring studio, and when he discovered what was being recorded next door managed to convince the director to give him a small role. This personal enthusiasm for the series had also been expressed by his participation in several audio plays based on the Doctor Who television series which had been produced by Big Finish Productions, although he did not play the Doctor in any of these productions. In 2004 Tennant played a lead role in the Big Finish audio play series Dalek Empire III. He played the part of Galanar, a young man who is given an assignment to discover the secrets of the Daleks. In 2005, he starred in UNIT: The Wasting for Big Finish, recreating his role of Brimmicombe-Wood from Doctor Who: Unbound – Sympathy for the Devil. The play was recorded between Tennant getting the role of the Doctor and it being announced. He also played the title role in Big Finish's adaptation of Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (2005).

Tennant has confirmed that he will continue to play the Tenth Doctor at least into the revived programme's third series in 2007,<ref>Dermody, Nick. "Third series for Dr Who and Rose", BBC, 2006-03-30. Retrieved on 2006-03-30.</ref> and the Sun has reported that he has also signed for the fourth (2008) series, "in a £1 million deal".<ref>Nathan, Sara. "Tennant to return as Doctor", The Sun, 2006-09-09. Retrieved on 2006-09-09.</ref> The Daily Mirror has reported that Tennant is forbidden from attending Doctor Who fan conventions while he is playing the role.<ref>Robertson, Cameron. "BEEB IN DR WHO FAN BAN", Daily Mirror, 2006-08-28. Retrieved on [[2006-08-28]].</ref>

[edit] Other work 2005-

Tennant as Giacomo Casanova in Casanova Tennant's casting in Doctor Who has not prevented him from taking on other roles. In January 2006, Tennant took a one-day break from shooting Doctor Who to play Richard Hoggart in a dramatisation of the 1960 Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial, The Chatterley Affair. Written by Andrew Davies and directed by Doctor Who's James Hawes for digital television channel BBC Four, Hoggart's son Simon Hoggart praised Tennant's performance in The Guardian newspaper. "[E]xtremely convincing — the suit, the hair, the Yorkshire accent, and trickiest of all, the speech rhythms. The only thing wrong is his sideburns. To do this film he had to take 24 hours off from making Doctor Who in Cardiff and, as he explained, the sideburns wouldn't grow back in a day."<ref>Hoggart, Simon. "Alcoholic? Not the Kennedy I knew", The Guardian, 2006-01-14.</ref>

On 18 April 2006, The Guardian announced that Tennant would star in Recovery, a 90-minute BBC1 drama written by Tony Marchant. Tennant will play Alan, a self-made building site manager who attempts to rebuild his life after suffering a debilitating brain injury in a car accident.<ref>Dowell, Ben. "Tennant to play brain injury victim", The Guardian, 2006-04-18.</ref>

[edit] Personal life

As of 2006, Tennant is dating actress Sophia Myles, who appears with him in the Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace. They started dating after filming in October 2005.<ref>"Dr Who guest star quizzed", SFX.com, 2006-04-11. Retrieved on 2006-05-07.</ref>

Tennant traced his family tree in an episode of BBC One's popular genealogy series, Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 27 September 2006. His episode explored both his Scottish ancestry, and that from Northern Ireland against the backdrop of the Troubles there. Tennant's maternal great-great-grandfather, James Blair, was a prominent Ulster Unionist member of Londonderry City Council after the partition of Ireland.

Tennant happily owns up to being one of the dullest men on the planet and refers to himself as a "skinny, gawky, freak boy" according to his interview in issue 375 of the Doctor Who Magazine. <ref>http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=dr%2D-whoosh%26method=full%26objectid=18046787%26siteid=62484-name_page.html</ref>He drives a Skoda in which he was caught twice on the M4 for speeding while returning to London from Cardiff in October 2006.

[edit] List of credits

[edit] Television

[edit] Film

[edit] Radio and CD audio drama

[edit] Theatre

[edit] Awards

  • Theatre Management Association Best Actor Award: The Glass Menagerie
  • 2000 — Nominated for Ian Charleson Award (Best classical actor under 30): Comedy of Errors
  • 2003 — Nominated for Olivier Award as Best Actor: Lobby Hero
  • 2005 — Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland, Best Male Performance: Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger
  • 2006 — TV Quick and TV Choice Award, Best Actor: Doctor Who<ref>"Doctor Who lands three TV awards", BBC News, 2006-09-05. Retrieved on 2006-09-05.</ref>
  • 2006 - National Television Award, Best Actor: Doctor Who

[edit] References

<references/>

[edit] External links

Preceded by:
Christopher Eccleston 		The Doctor
(Tenth Doctor)
2005 - 		Succeeded by:
Incumbent
es:David Tennant

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