Paul McGann has revealed that Janet Fielding urged him to accept the role of the Eighth Doctor in 1996’s Doctor Who, aka The TV Movie.
Fielding played Fourth and Fifth Doctor companion, Tegan Jovanka, but at the time, she was working as an agent. McGann recalls:
“Once we got to Canada and started work on it, and the fact that my agent was Janet Fielding… we started talking, and she said, ‘Look, you know, this ain’t going to be like the other jobs. [You’ll] still be talking about this in 30 years’ time.’
“We never had the conversation until [producer and driving force] Phil Segal was chasing me to do this, and then we talked about it, but she really helped, it really helped having her input, and I might not have accepted it had it not been for her telling me to do that.”
And, as McGann implies here, she was absolutely right — The TV Movie celebrates its 30th anniversary this month, and he’s not only still talking about, but still recording audio dramas as the Doctor; his incarnation lives on through various media.
Segal is one of the main reasons the Eighth Doctor exists: his persistence, from the late 1980s onwards, helped push down countless barriers and meant that we got a vision of Doctor Who in the 1990s.
Many, many, many people were up for the part of the Eighth Doctor — including Mark McGann, not to mention Peter Capaldi, Christopher Eccleston, and John Hurt (the latter of three of whom obviously went on to play the lead role later in life) — but we’re glad Paul made it; he’s a fantastic actor, an excellent ambassador for the show, and an all-round nice chap. Good work, Janet Fielding!
