Capaldi and Eccleston turned down role of the 8th Doctor in 1996

Interviewed Patterson Joseph at the launch of the Survivors remake: in person he is rather like Tom Baker - totally his own, slightly mad, person, and I wish we'd seen his Doctor...

 

^I love him in Peep Show and enjoyed him recently in The Leftovers but I'm still not 100% sold on the idea of him as The Doctor. But I'd keep an open mind.

 

Yeah, he has had some ropey roles at times, but I loved him in Neverwhere, he's hilarious in Peep Show and I actually thought he was really good in Survivors, a better lead than Max Beesley was IMO.

I do wonder if whether you can see Paterson Joseph as the Doctor comes down to whether you saw Neverwhere back in the day (though I could be horribly mistaken about this.)

 

^That occurred to me too. Most people who enthuse about him as the Doctor mention Neverwhere.

To me, he's mostly boss-from-hell Johnson from Peep Show.

 

I've actually only seen Paterson Joseph in Survivors, myself, and that performance alone had me nodding my head in agreement the first time I saw someone suggest him, so, not just folks who've seen him Neverwhere.

 

^ I haven't seen it either. But now you mention it, after Tennant left, I did hear some people mention Joseph as a possible replacement and some of them referred to Survivors, which I think was airing around that time.

 

I've posted this many times http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHpYWy89yVU

"Is that a new hovel?"

And in the interests of fairness...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0N01U0XR4

I believe Gaiman championed Paterson Joseph at one stage.

 

And I agree - with you, that is, not with RTD.

I think part of his argument (and I'm at best paraphrasing, quite possibly misremembering) was that McGann's Doctor was envisaged as a sort of Byron-esque-looking romantic lead whereas he wanted a haunted sort like Nine.

Of course, we only saw Eight once onscreen, in the telemovie, in his debut adventure and a Doctor's first post-regeneration isn't always entirely representative of how the character is going to be. Paul, like Chris, is a northerner from a working-class city and could well have played Eight as a brash and scarred post-Time War veteran.

Really, I think what it comes down to is that RTD didn't want any association with the telefilm and wanted to cast his own Doctor. As with Tennant, with whom he'd worked on in Casanova, I think he also wanted to cast someone with whom he'd worked before. So I think the explanation about why Paul wasn't suitable is neither entirely true nor is it accurate.

 

Agreed. The thread title is misleading.

A wide range of people auditioned for the role, and both Eccleston and Capaldi were on a (long) list of candidates that got assembled by the UK based casting agency, but IIRC only a small handful of that list actually went on to audition.

The first choice for Number Eight was Michael Crawford, who was actually offered the role outright (without an audition) by the TVM's producers, but who turned it down.

(Incidentally, speaking of Capaldi, I was watching the 1997 Mister Bean movie the other night, and was surprised to see an astonishingly fresh faced young Capaldi in an early scene. Definitely one of those weird 'retroactive recognition' moments.)

 

There were a large number of actors considered for the role.

And even more actors as filming drew near.

 

But as I said, a much smaller number of those who were actually in contention for the role. The front-runners were Michael Crawford (who was offered the role without an audition, but rejected it), Liam Cunningham, Paul McGann and Harry Van Gorkum (as an outsider). The thread title is still somewhat misleading though, because neither Eccleston nor Capaldi ever actually went to audition. That isn't so much being offered a job and turning it down, as it is being offered the chance to go to a job interview and turning that down.

There were some intriguing possibilities on the actual audition lists though -- Stephan Hartley (latterly Superintendent Chandler in The Bill), Trevor Eve (Waking The Dead), Robert Lindsay (Hornblower, My Family), Paul Venables (May To December, Skyfall), Neil Morressey (Men Behaving Badly), John Sessions (the UK Whose Line Is It Anyway), Tony Slattery (ditto), Hugh Laurie (House), Peter Richardson (The Comic Strip Presents)...

The list of the great and the good who actually did audition for it goes on and on. But neither Eccleston nor Capaldi are among them.

 

Wasn't Tim Curry the one they chose, but he turned it down due to a scheduling conflict and recommended McGann?

 

That's hilarious. What project was this??

 

Our Friends in the (lots of planets have a) North.

That list of names seems ridiculous. Why would Brosnan be interested in playing the Doctor when he was playing 007 (Dalton would have made more sense).

Michael Crawford would have been interesting, though in a lot of people's mind he'd always be Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em!

Iy really is shocking how long Capaldi's been knocking around. This weekend's pointless fact, courtesy of the show 'Pointless', is that Capaldi was in Dangerous Liaisons!

 

Nah. The official making of book, co-written by the producer himself, says that Liam Cunningham and Paul McGann became the two clear front-runners after Michael Crawford (who was the first choice) turned it down.