Matt Smith interviewed in The Observer

[Captaindemotion]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/dec/03/matt-smith-interview-lord-misrule

Not an awful lot new in it, but I thought some of you might like to see it. I've included some of the more interesting quotes.

[H]e's just finished shooting the Doctor Who Christmas Special. "It was a really tough shoot," he says. Enthusiastically. "Out in a forest, at night, and because there were children involved, some shooting schedules had to change radically, we'd often have to shoot through, no breaks – you get lunch at midnight or something. But worth it, certainly: I think it'll be a great show."
I had understood, before, that his love life and the Christmas special were essentially off-limits, so decided to ask him directly about both; he laughs generously and is far from guarded. "Well, the show. OK. It focuses around the Doctor meeting a family, in particular two young children, and their mother, played by Claire Skinner, and of course they enter a world which perhaps they shouldn't have entered, in good faith, and… well, a jolly old time of it. Around the Second World War. I've got huge hopes for it; the director Farren Blackburn, who just did The Fades [BBC3's apocalyptic teen drama], has given it great scale and colours – it's almost Tim Burton-esque.

As the doctor ages he gets younger and sillier. He's over 1,000 now, I think. And – oh, I just like him. His lack of cynicism. He's like a baby. He wants to sniff, to taste, everything; he'll never dismiss anything. As we get older – perhaps I'm just speaking for myself – we can get too cynical. If he had a… bath, it would be filled with rubber ducks which could talk or something; he'd find a way to reinvent the common bath. And I admire that."

Does that mean his doctor's incarnation is now measurably finite? Three years? Five years?
"It depends on your physical and mental state at the end of every shoot. I just take it year by year, but I'm quite excited by the coming year – it's the 50th anniversary, which'll let us be even bigger and bolder than ever." It's harder to think how much bigger, bolder, stranger. Don't there come limits? "Never. Not in Doctor Who. That's the beauty of it. You're never bound by logic, or time, or genre, or space, or location, which is what makes it such an ingenious televisual conceit."
I hesitate to ask because there are so many, many fans – myself included most of the time – but the last series was criticised for being too complicated. Did Matt ever think the scripts were veering towards being a bit… silly?
"Absolutely not, no way. By its very conceit – you've got a 1,000-year-old alien that looks like a human with two hearts who travels round in an impossibly dimensioned box – there's no room for it to become too silly. Why, do you think it's too silly? You don't look like a man who would find Doctor Who silly!" No, I don't really, and surely there are parallels with Douglas Adams – one of the early Who writers – who later, in Hitchhiker's, created a universe to explore not science fiction but the human condition. "Well, quite. The genre is a great way to write yourself out of any corner, certainly, which helps – but it also places human drama, relationships, right at the centre, which is what I think we invest in, and by human I include the doctor."

 

[Bacl]

My guess: Based on this interview and a few others, Matt Smith wants to stick around for the 50th but is getting a bit worn out and itching to move on. He likely doesn't have confirmation on the other end if he can indeed stay for the 50th, but if he does make it through, expect him to leave shortly after.

Of course, that's just a guess.

 

[DS9Continuing]

"You're never bound by logic."

Yeah, that pretty much says it.

.

 

[Brendan Moody]

My guess: Based on this interview and a few others, Matt Smith wants to stick around for the 50th but is getting a bit worn out and itching to move on. He likely doesn't have confirmation on the other end if he can indeed stay for the 50th, but if he does make it through, expect him to leave shortly after.

He already is staying for the 50th: when he says "the coming year" is the 50th anniversary, he means the filming that's already confirmed to start in February 2012 for broadcast in 2012-2013, which will, as he said in another interview, include the 50th anniversary special.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I love this quote:

"By its very conceit – you've got a 1,000-year-old alien that looks like a human with two hearts who travels round in an impossibly dimensioned box – there's no room for it to become too silly. Why, do you think it's too silly? You don't look like a man who would find Doctor Who silly!"

Bam. He nailed it right there.