Ninth Doctor actor, Christopher Eccleston, has spoken about how nervous Billie Piper was during filming for Doctor Who Series 1.

Publicising Big Finish’s The Ninth Doctor Adventures, a new series of audio stories that begin earlier this month with Snare, Eccleston recalled:

“[Billie Piper] was very nervous at the time – I’m sure she won’t mind me talking about that. She was not somebody who thought she was great. It was interesting to see her insecurity because we could all see that she just shone, but she didn’t assume that.”

Eccleston is a class act and always speaks so highly and warmly about Billie, so his admiration here is to be expected; it’s still lovely to hear though, especially as that nervousness didn’t come across on screen.

Showrunner, Russell T Davies, has previously spoken about how he viewed Piper, who played companion Rose Tyler, as their “secret weapon”, and she proved something of an anchor between the Ninth and Tenth (David Tennant) Doctors, seeing as she stuck around for Series 2.

We should remember, too, that Billie wasn’t primarily known as an actress back then — she was better known as a pop artist, so this was a relatively new industry for her, and Doctor Who has always been a massive franchise; there was also a lot riding on that first season of the show, potentially being the only one as further commissions were certainly not guaranteed.

We wonder how Billie feels now that she’s apparently the Sixteenth Doctor, taking over from Ncuti Gatwa. Or perhaps she’s not. No one knows. Heck, we wonder what Eccleston thinks; but then, he’s said in the past how good Piper would be as the Doctor…