This thread arises from a thought that’s been kicking around in the back of my head since catching a bit of the Cushing DW movies on the wonderful Talking Pictures tv channel recently. Decided to post it as a result of some of you discussing the Cushing movies in the thread about the 70th anniversary of DW.
So, what I was thinking was, while the Cushing Doctor (or Doctor Who) is not the Hartnell version, he is clearly inspired by him. He’s not identical but wears similar clothing and is an elderly, white-haired professorial crotchety type. He is accompanied by Susan, Barbara (though unlike in the tv show, she too is the Doctor’s granddaughter) and Ian. And his adventures are based on ones which Hartnell’s Doctor had. Cushing was apparently cast because he was better known to international audiences than William was.
So let’s imagine that the series of films had continued parallel with DW the series, but as Hartnell left and was replaced in the tv show, the producers of the films had also replaced Cushing with actors who were reminiscent of the television successors. Again, not identical, but recognisable as, well, variants of the originals.
I like the idea of Ron Moody as an alternate to Patrick Troughton (he apparently rejected the chance to become the Third Doctor, according to his IMDb page). He also works as being better known to film audiences, given his Oscar nomination for Oliver!
I could see Danny Kaye as a big screen version of Jon Pertwee (I’m cheating a bit here as he was American but I can’t think of an English choice as good!)
Finding a variant of the one-off that is Tom Baker is even harder. Simon Callow springs to mind but he would’ve been a little too young at the time (born 1979). Maybe Robert Stephens, though he lacked Tom’s quirk.
With Five, we’re looking at a youngish more conventional leading man. I can imagine a young and still pretty Jeremy Irons (who was going global in a cricket jumper with Brideshead Revisited around the same time as Peter was rocking a similar outfit) as a slightly more sinister version on the big screen).
Six and Seven I am struggling with as both were very distinct actors, with not too many lookalikes or actors reminiscent of them among the British leading men of the 1980s.
With nuWho and the lines between tv and movie stardom blurring, it becomes less likely that they’d need to distinguish but I can imagine Sean Bean as Nine or Eddie Redmayne as Eleven, for example.
Anyway. Just a bit of nonsense time wasting and mulling on my part but who would be your cinematic Two to Seven (or beyond)?
So, what I was thinking was, while the Cushing Doctor (or Doctor Who) is not the Hartnell version, he is clearly inspired by him. He’s not identical but wears similar clothing and is an elderly, white-haired professorial crotchety type. He is accompanied by Susan, Barbara (though unlike in the tv show, she too is the Doctor’s granddaughter) and Ian. And his adventures are based on ones which Hartnell’s Doctor had. Cushing was apparently cast because he was better known to international audiences than William was.
So let’s imagine that the series of films had continued parallel with DW the series, but as Hartnell left and was replaced in the tv show, the producers of the films had also replaced Cushing with actors who were reminiscent of the television successors. Again, not identical, but recognisable as, well, variants of the originals.
I like the idea of Ron Moody as an alternate to Patrick Troughton (he apparently rejected the chance to become the Third Doctor, according to his IMDb page). He also works as being better known to film audiences, given his Oscar nomination for Oliver!
I could see Danny Kaye as a big screen version of Jon Pertwee (I’m cheating a bit here as he was American but I can’t think of an English choice as good!)
Finding a variant of the one-off that is Tom Baker is even harder. Simon Callow springs to mind but he would’ve been a little too young at the time (born 1979). Maybe Robert Stephens, though he lacked Tom’s quirk.
With Five, we’re looking at a youngish more conventional leading man. I can imagine a young and still pretty Jeremy Irons (who was going global in a cricket jumper with Brideshead Revisited around the same time as Peter was rocking a similar outfit) as a slightly more sinister version on the big screen).
Six and Seven I am struggling with as both were very distinct actors, with not too many lookalikes or actors reminiscent of them among the British leading men of the 1980s.
With nuWho and the lines between tv and movie stardom blurring, it becomes less likely that they’d need to distinguish but I can imagine Sean Bean as Nine or Eddie Redmayne as Eleven, for example.
Anyway. Just a bit of nonsense time wasting and mulling on my part but who would be your cinematic Two to Seven (or beyond)?
