Matt Smith, who played the Eleventh Doctor regularly between 2010 and 2013 (before making a cameo in Deep Breath in 2014), has spoken once more with wonderful fondness for Doctor Who, which propelled him to super-stardom.

So what is it about the Doctor that makes him such a fantastic character to play? In an interview with Valley Public Radio, Matt was asked about being the youngest incarnation, and was told his Doctor seemed to be having fun. Smith replied:

“Well, he is. He’s an alien. But that’s what’s so great about that: it gives you carte blanche to be very inventive… Most other characters – if you take [his Crown role, Prince] Philip, for example, to get from A to Z, you’ve got to go through C, D; you’ve got to get to F, whatever. But, with the Doctor, he can get go A, Z, back, you know, and it doesn’t really matter. You can skip all the letters of the alphabet!”

One of the Eleventh Doctor’s many strengths, at least to this fan, is that he can go from being very dark and serious to being frivolous and convivial, on a pinhead.

Matt’s played Prince Philip in The Crown, the high-profile Netflix drama, for two seasons, and was asked whether he got any feedback from his Royal counterpart. Matt said:

“I think that Philip was asked if he’d watched it, and he just turned around and said, ‘don’t be ridiculous’, which I thought was very good.”

You can hear the full interview (and read its transcript) over at NPR.