As excited as you may be for the Thirteenth Doctor to arrive you’ll never be as excited as Jodie Whittaker who has called her casting ‘the defining moment of my life’.
Last seen tumbling out of a stricken TARDIS, Whittaker made her bow at the end of this year’s Christmas special, Twice Upon a Time, and it seems that brief foray into space and time travel has given her a taste for the life of the Doctor.
Speaking to Total Film (via Radio Times), Whittaker said:
“I feel old enough for it. And I feel like I understand how important it is, and I’m so excited that the role models for young children, boys or girls… or teenagers, or adults, come in different forms.
“There’s nothing unattainable about me. I don’t look like I’ve been carved out of rock. I don’t sound like I’ve had the extraordinary glamour.
“For me, knowing what I thought were my limitations as a person and an actor, because this industry is about, ‘You sound like this, you look like this’… but I’m normal.”

It’s that normality that appealed to Whittaker – the idea of a regular, everyday person being a superhero – it’s something that she also discussed with the Tenth Doctor himself, David Tennant, who co-starred with Whittaker in three series of Broadchurch.
“That was exciting to David. It was a superhero he could play. And now it opens it a little wider, to women as well.”
In fact, the only negative aspect of the whole experience so far has been that the casting of the first female Doctor was such big news to begin with– her hope is that, in the future, it could just be normal.
“It’s amazing to be a milestone, but how wonderful if it wasn’t, if it was just accepted, embraced. I’m not dissing the moment – it’s f**king brilliant – but hopefully when other people grow up, it’s not so much of a surprise.”
Doctor Who will return to BBC One this autumn.