Who doesn’t love the Eleventh Doctor? Matt Smith came from nowhere and perfectly captured both the Doctors alien and timeless qualities while seemingly embodying a far old character than his fresh face would have you believe.

However, there was a period of nervousness for fans and creatives alike; would audiences take to the new Doctor? Could he match David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor in popularity? And, perhaps more worrying, would the show continue if he failed to capture the public’s imagination.

Well, you know the answers but, what was it like for the man himself to live through all that uncertainty.
Speaking on The Graham Norton Show, Matt Smith, who was there to promote Netflix’s brand new royal drama, The Crown, said that people weren’t exactly sold on him as the Doctor:

“When I first got the job all people would do was shout at me, ‘Don’t break Doctor Who!’…I was too young and everyone hated me.”

That hated was short-lived but there was one more problem that’s perhaps unique to Doctor Who itself, that Smith had to try and get his head around, the very silly technobabble.

Smith added:

“Like, every day! And it’s complete gobbledygook! People tried to talk to me about the science all the time, about the TARDIS and the logic of time travel, whether Zygons exist – all of it.”

Whether he understood it or not, he was spot on every time.

Matt Smith appears alongside his The Crown co-star Claire Foy, David Attenborough and Sting, on tonight’s episode of The Graham Norton Show, which airs at 10.35pm on BBC One.