Writer's Block: Doctor Who?
Jan. 7th, 2009 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fajrdrako[Error: unknown template qotd]
My ideal doctor was Christopher Eccleston as Nine. He's gone, won't come back, but that's my honest answer to the question as stated.
After that, my first choice was Robert Carlyle. But he's gone to Stargate, and now that Matt Smith has been given the role, the notion of Carlyle is no longer so easily imaginable.
I would also have liked to cast, in no particular order:
My ideal doctor was Christopher Eccleston as Nine. He's gone, won't come back, but that's my honest answer to the question as stated.
After that, my first choice was Robert Carlyle. But he's gone to Stargate, and now that Matt Smith has been given the role, the notion of Carlyle is no longer so easily imaginable.
I would also have liked to cast, in no particular order:
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Date: 2009-01-08 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-01-08 03:14 am (UTC)Krumholtz is one of those few actors who was an "old soul" pretty much from his birth. He could have played the Doctor at 13!
Plummer has a nicely detached manner; I had thought of him before, as well as Peter Woodward, and I certainly wouldn't have turned up my nose at David Strathairn, that's for sure.
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Date: 2009-01-08 12:06 pm (UTC)And he seems to have that flexibility, range, mercurial reactions that is one of the hallmarks of the Doctor.
Plummer has a nicely detached manner
I think he'd fit into the niche quite well - good at impishness, good at gravitas.
I certainly wouldn't have turned up my nose at David Strathairn, that's for sure.
I never do!
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Date: 2009-01-08 12:02 pm (UTC)I've always liked his style.
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Date: 2009-01-08 09:36 am (UTC)I'm really don't have anyone else in mind to could play the Doctor.
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Date: 2009-01-08 05:57 pm (UTC)My favourite would have been James Frain, who has intensity and excellent acting skills.
And why has no one suggested Sam West?
Matt Smith seems OK off-hand, but awfully young & inexperienced. And I'm not thrilled about his voice (although it was hard to judge given he was obviously putting on an accent in The Ruby in the Smoke).
I think playing the Doctor does require a fair amount of experience and understanding (as well as being a Who fan-boy). That's why I loved Eccleston was Nine so much (or Tennant as Ten, for that matter). They both had the acting chops and versatility underneath.
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Date: 2009-01-08 07:01 pm (UTC)I did wonder about Sam West in the role, and came to no conclusions. My feelings about him for the role are about the same as my assessment of Chewitel Ejiofor. I believe he can do anything, and role at all. But I can't picture what he'd make of it.
I had no problem with Matt Smith's voice. I'm trying to get my hands on Party Animal to see what he's like in that. I did see him in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and might still have that episode on my DVR.
Is Matt Smith a fanboy? I've heard nothing yet about his past experience with Doctor Who but it seems to me he must have grown up during that 15-year hiatus when the show was not on British TV.
Eccleston is another one of those actors who can do anything, and do it superbly. Tennant... is more of a specialized case, but very entertaining, and good to watch. I do wish I could have seen his Hamlet. Seems to me that he applies the same skills and mannerisms to all his roles - from scummy killers to bent cops to Casanova to the Doctor - and he somehow makes it all work simply because he is so expressive.
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Date: 2009-01-08 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-01-09 06:45 pm (UTC)It's like the modern trend for colour-blind casting in historical drama: sometimes it works, sometimes it's nonsensical and looks like the tokenism it is. For example, it makes sense in 18-19C London, as in some recent Dickens adaptations, because there was a substantial Black population in that time and place, largely working-class. But in mediæval Western settings, it looks odd, especially because it's never explained and none of the other characters comment on it. You just have to read William Dunbar's nasty, leering poem about the Moorish lady chosen as Queen of one of James IV's tournaments to realise how implausible it is that you could have a number of non-white characters around without anyone remarking on it. And I remember one silly article on the subject where the writer asked, "Why couldn't one have a Mr Darcy of Chinese heritage?" It would need a lot of back-story explaining about the tea-trade! Ironically, the main classic literary role who's strongly hinted as being non-white ("Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen…"), Heathcliff, has only been played as Black on stage, not film or TV.
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Date: 2009-01-09 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-01-10 01:48 am (UTC)Also, Jack Davenport and Marc Warren.
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Date: 2009-01-10 01:56 am (UTC)I don't like Marc Warren, though I'll concede he's talented.
Jack Davenport would be brilliant.
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Date: 2009-01-14 03:43 am (UTC)