David Tennant

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Tennant (born David John McDonald; 18 April 1971) is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in the theatre (his Hamlet has been widely praised),[1][2] Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Early life

Tennant was born David John McDonald on 18 April 1971 in Bathgate, West Lothian and grew up in Ralston, Renfrewshire, where his father (the Reverend Alexander ("Sandy") McDonald) was the local Church of Scotland minister (and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1997).[3][4][5] He grew up with his brother, 6 years his elder, and sister, 8 years his elder.[6] Tennant's maternal great-grandparents, William and Agnes Blair, were staunch Protestants from Derry in Northern Ireland and among the signatories of the Ulster Covenant; William was a member of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland. Tennant's maternal grandfather, footballer Archie McLeod, met William and Agnes's daughter Nellie Blair while playing for Derry City F.C..[7]

Tennant was educated at Ralston Primary and Paisley Grammar School where he enjoyed a fruitful relationship with English language teacher Moira Robertson, who was among the first to recognise his potential.[8] He acted in school productions throughout primary and secondary school (his talent at this young age was spotted by actress Edith MacArthur, who after seeing his first role aged 11, told his parents she predicted he would become a successful stage actor). [9] He also attended Saturday classes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. At 16 he passed an audition for the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, one of their youngest students, and studied there between the ages of 17-20. He earned a bachelor's degree and was flatmates with friend Louise Delamere.

At the age of three, Tennant told his parents that he wanted to become an actor because he was a fan of Doctor Who,[10] and they tried to encourage him to do more conventional work.[6] He watched almost every Doctor Who episode for years, and he met Tom Baker at a book signing event in Glasgow and spoke to him.[6] Although such an aspiration might have been common for any British child of the 1970s, Tennant says he was "absurdly single-minded" in pursuing his goal. He adopted the professional name "Tennant" — inspired by Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, after reading a copy of Smash Hits magazine[11] — because there was another David McDonald already on the books of the Equity union. His first choice for a stage name was David Brandon (but that name was also disallowed), his second choice was David Tennant, and his third choice was Chris McDonald.

Career

Early work

Tennant made his professional acting debut while still in secondary school. When he was 16 he acted in an anti-smoking film made by the Glasgow Health Board which aired on television and was also screened in schools. [9] The following year he played a role in an episode of Dramarama.

Tennant's first professional role upon graduating from drama school was in a staging of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui co-starring Ashley Jensen, one of a few plays in which he performed as part of the agitprop 7:84 Theatre Company. Tennant also made an early television appearance in the Scottish TV sitcom Rab C Nesbitt as a transsexual barmaid called Davina.

Tennant's first major TV role was as the manic depressive Campbell in the Scottish drama series Takin' Over the Asylum (1994). During filming, Tennant met comic actress and writer Arabella Weir. When he moved to London shortly afterwards he lodged with Weir for five years and became godfather to her youngest child. He has subsequently appeared alongside Weir in many productions; as a guest in her spoof television series, Posh Nosh; in the Doctor Who audio drama Exile- during which Weir played an alternate version of the Doctor- and as panelists on the West Wing Ultimate Quiz on More4.

One of his earliest big screen roles was in Jude (1996), in which he shared a scene with Christopher Eccleston, playing a drunken undergraduate who challenges Eccleston's Jude to prove his intellect.

Tennant developed his career in the British theatre, frequently performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first Shakespearean role for the RSC was in As You Like It (1996); having auditioned for the role of Orlando, the romantic lead, he was instead cast as the jester Touchstone, which he played in his natural Scottish accent.[12] He subsequently specialised in comic roles, playing Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors and Captain Jack Absolute in The Rivals, although he also played the tragic role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet.

Tennant also contributed to several audio dramatisations of Shakespeare for the Arkangel Complete Shakespeare series (1998). His roles include a reprisal of his Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors, as well as Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, Edgar/Poor Tom in King Lear, and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, all of which he performs in his natural accent.

In 1995, Tennant appeared at the Royal National Theatre, London, playing the role of Nicholas Beckett in Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw. The plot required Tennant to appear naked on stage.

In television, Tennant appeared in the first episode of Reeves and Mortimer's re-vamped Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) in 2000, playing an eccentric artist. This is one of his few TV roles in his native Scottish accent. During the Christmas season of 2002, he starred in a series of television commercials for Boots the Chemists.[13]

Tennant began to appear on television more prominently in 2004-05, when he appeared in a dramatisation of He Knew He Was Right (2004) Blackpool (2004), Casanova (2005) and The Quatermass Experiment (2005).

In film, he appeared in Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things (2003), and played Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Doctor Who (2005–2010)

Tennant with Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies (left), regular director Euros Lyn (centre right), and executive producer Julie Gardner (right) at Comic-Con in July 2009

Tennant's name was put forward as a candidate for the role of the Ninth Doctor in 2004, although the role went to Christopher Eccleston. With Eccleston's announcement on 31 March 2005 that he would not be returning for a second series, the BBC confirmed Tennant as his replacement in a press release on 16 April 2005. He made his first, brief appearance as the Tenth Doctor in the episode "The Parting of the Ways" (2005) after the regeneration scene, and also appeared in a special 7-minute mini-episode shown as part of the 2005 Children in Need appeal, broadcast on 18 November 2005. He began filming the new series of Doctor Who in late July 2005. His first full-length outing as the Doctor was a sixty-minute special, "The Christmas Invasion", first broadcast on Christmas Day 2005.

Tennant has expressed enthusiasm about fulfilling his childhood dream. He remarked to an interviewer for GWR FM, "Who wouldn't want to be the Doctor? I've even got my own TARDIS!" In 2006, readers of Doctor Who Magazine voted Tennant 'Best Doctor', over perennial favourite Tom Baker.[14] In 2007, Tennant's Doctor was voted the "coolest character" on UK television in a Radio Times survey.[15] When Tennant was cast as Eccleston's successor he had wanted to use his native Scottish accent and become 'the first kilted Doctor' according to an interview in the Daily Star) but writer Russell T Davies did not want the doctor's accent 'touring the regions' so he used "estuary" English instead.

Tennant had previously had a small role in the BBC's animated Doctor Who webcast Scream of the Shalka. Not originally cast in the production, Tennant happened to be recording a radio play in a neighbouring studio, and when he discovered what was being recorded next door managed to convince the director to give him a small role. This personal enthusiasm for the series had also been expressed by his participation in several audio plays based on the Doctor Who television series which had been produced by Big Finish Productions, although he did not play the Doctor in any of these productions. His first such role was in the Seventh Doctor audio Colditz, where he played a Nazi lieutenant guard at Colditz Castle. In 2004 Tennant played a lead role in the Big Finish audio play series Dalek Empire III. He played the part of Galanar, a young man who is given an assignment to discover the secrets of the Daleks. In 2005, he starred in UNIT: The Wasting for Big Finish, recreating his role of Brimmicombe-Wood from a Doctor Who Unbound play, Sympathy for the Devil. He also played an unnamed Time Lord in another Doctor Who Unbound play Exile. UNIT: The Wasting, was recorded between Tennant getting the role of the Doctor and it being announced. He also played the title role in Big Finish's adaptation of Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (2005). In 2006, he recorded abridged audio books of The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner, The Feast of the Drowned by Stephen Cole and The Resurrection Casket by Justin Richards, for BBC Worldwide. Tennant is close friends with actress Billie Piper.