Bill Nighy was once “approached” to be the Doctor
June 4th, 2012
Bill Nighy has revealed that he was once offered the chance to play the Doctor in Doctor Who.
The actor admitted to The People that he ultimately decided to turned down the role, as he feels “it comes with too much baggage”.
“I was offered the role once,” he said. “I won’t tell you when, because the rule is that you’re not allowed to say you turned that job down. It’s disrespectful to whoever did it.”
He added: “I was approached. I didn’t want to be the Doctor. No disrespect or anything.”
Bill’s credits include Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean and Hot Fuzz. He appeared in Series Five of Doctor Who as Dr Black in Vincent and the Doctor by Richard Curtis.
I’ve always liked Bill Nighy and think he’s a brilliant actor and would make a fine Doctor, so it’s a shame he turned down the role.
It would be great though if a well-respected actor like Bill Nighy were to be the 12th Doctor, because the majority of Doctor actors have been unknowns. So it would be interesting to see what a well-known actor would be like as the Doctor.
@Borusa I am not sure how you would think “the majority of Doctor actors have been unknowns”
William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Paul Magan and Christopher Eccelson were very well know prior to Doctor Who, that’s at least half well know. :)
Bill Nighy was great in “Vincent and The Doctor”, just great.
The very emotional scenes at the end of those episodes worked because of the way he spoke those lines and the way Tony Curran reacted to them.
I can imagine him being quite a Hartnell-esque Doctor although I can’t imagine they’d have been after him in recent years, as we’ve tended to have younger actors. Possibly he was offered the TVM in ‘96?
end of that episode*………sorry, was distracted earlier
he would have been an amazing doctor look at his great acting skill in the underworld francise and pirates of the cirabeane