Doctor Who TV movie director Geoffrey Sax has revealed how close another actor came to playing the Eighth Doctor, before Paul McGann ultimately won the role.
McGann made his debut as the Time Lord in the 1996 TV movie, a feature-length co-production between the BBC and Fox that was intended as a pilot for a new Doctor Who series.
But, in a new interview with Radio Times, Sax recalled that the actor was not already attached to the project when he came aboard.
“No, Paul wasn’t [attached],” Sax said. “I think his name had been mooted, and I think he’d done a screen test a long time before when [producer] Phil Segal was trying to get it off the ground.
“I think Phil Segal tried to get it off the ground many times, and Paul’s name was mooted then, but then when I started, it was a clean slate, and we interviewed – I don’t know how many – but it was quite a lot of candidates for it.”
Sax went on to reveal that one actor in particular came very close to landing the part.
“There was a guy called Harry Van Gorkum, and he came extremely close, and he had a huge amount of charisma,” he said.
“I think what happened was we were pushing for him, and I think the BBC said at the time, ‘Well, we would like somebody with a bit more of a name, because obviously, although Doctor Who’s got the brand, we just want to make it really special.
“‘So, if you can find a name, somebody who’s already more established in the UK, let’s go with that.’ And that’s how Paul became involved.”
Explaining why McGann ultimately won the role, Sax said: “Someone – and again, I don’t remember who, because it’s such a long time ago – brought Paul’s name into the mix, and we just said, ‘Well, yeah, that makes sense,’ and we offered it to him.
“I just think from the work he’d done on the various shows, he just seemed to be what we were looking for.
“Everybody else we met, some of them were very, very good indeed, but we just thought, ‘That’s just not quite right.'”
Sax added that McGann’s comic touch was also key to the performance, having recently revisited the TV movie at a BFI screening.
“Paul had the comedy as well, because there’s quite a lot of humour,” he said. “We had the screening at the BFI, and I’d forgotten how many laughs there were in it, and a lot of them came from Paul.”
Van Gorkum has previously spoken about his near-miss with Doctor Who, telling Doctor Who Magazine in 2021: “There are only two roles in the world where, if the phone goes, and you’ve got it, overnight your life has changed. There’s James Bond and Doctor Who.”
He recalled being told after his audition that he had won the role, before being informed that the BBC wanted “somebody with a bit more of a name”.
“So that was it. I was absolutely crushed,” Van Gorkum said. “I’m not bitter about it at all. I was mortified at the time, but that’s the career I’ve picked.”
Van Gorkum went on to appear in shows including Friends, Charmed, CSI and 24, while McGann’s casting as the Doctor led to a long association with the franchise, including a later screen return in 2013 mini-sode The Night of the Doctor.
The TV movie was recently screened at BFI Southbank in a new 4K restoration, followed by a Q&A with Sax and McGann.
The remaster arrives ahead of a new 4K and Blu-ray home media release, with the TV movie newly restored from the original 35mm film elements to mark its 30th anniversary.
The release will be available as a Limited Edition Steelbook featuring the 90-minute adventure on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray, alongside standalone 4K and standard Blu-ray editions.
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