While speaking about her new series Dear England, which charts Gareth Southgate’s time as manager of the England football team, Jodie Whittaker has opened up about her Doctor Who casting, and admitted it was “incredibly overwhelming”.
Whittaker plays Pippa Grange, the Head of People and Team Development at The Football Association from 2017 to 2019. When speaking with The Standard, it was noted that the series depicts media intrusion having a big impact on Grange’s life.
Whittaker was then asked whether there have been moments in her career where she has felt similarly, to which she responded: “I’ve felt incredibly overwhelmed. I’d say the only thing is Doctor Who – the casting of Doctor Who. But has it ever felt too much? No. Because I’m still here, I’m still working.”
Whittaker continued: “It’s an overnight change in your life that you think will permanently be at that high-octane level, and it isn’t. When you get cast, you think it’s gonna be like that scene in Notting Hill every day. Like, I’m gonna be Rhys Ifans every day.
“That’s based on naivety and probably narcissism about interest in my own everyday life. But now I can walk down the street and no one bothers me — so I’m living my best life!”
Whittaker also said that she knew that her casting, as the first woman to take on the role of the Doctor, was “a little bit… questioned”, but added that “it’s genuinely my happiest time on a job — ever. And I’ll never get bored of talking about it, I love it so much.”
Since leaving the series in 2022, Whittaker has reprising her role as the Doctor, both in Big Finish audio dramas and on screen, returning to meet her successor, Ncuti Gatwa, in his final episode.
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Her predecessor, Peter Capaldi, was recently asked about the backlash that occurred among some subsections of the fandom and elsewhere online to both Whittaker and Gatwa’s casting, as the first female and Black actors in the role.
Defending their casting, Capaldi said of the sci-fi series: “It reflects its times and it’s a good thing in the world, though it’s become a bit too big, too important for the BBC or whoever. When I was a kid and watched it, it was just a monster show in the corner of the room. I dunno why people take it so seriously.”
Dear England also stars Joseph Fiennes as Gareth Southgate himself, and is made up of four episodes, which will begin airing on Sunday 24 May.
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