Yesterday morning, Jodie Whittaker joined Shaun Keaveny on his BBC Radio 6Music show to talk about all things Doctor Who.
Jodie is no stranger to this particular radio station. She joined Keaveny just over a year ago for her first interview since being announced as the Thirteenth Doctor. She also hosted a show over the Christmas period last year as one of 6Music’s ‘Three Wise Women’. These previous appearances were a joy to listen to, as was the interview she gave on Thursday morning.
In this interview with Keavney, she spoke in depth about her experience of playing the Doctor so far, as well as there being a brief debate about how to pronounce ‘July’.
Jodie Whittaker joined @bbc6breakfast and how to pronounce the word "July" came up.
Hear the full interview with the 13th Doctor here https://t.co/ITcX5ZZG8l #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/hGoDwJn1nF
— BBC Radio 6 Music (@BBC6Music) September 28, 2018
Jodie spoke briefly about her experience of the reaction to her being cast as the latest incarnation of the Doctor, admitting that “I only hear the nice stuff because I select the WhatsApps I read when I get forwarded the stuff about people’s reactions, but obviously a lot of my mates will go, ‘Oh, this is hilarious, read this!’ And you just think, it is an alien, the character’s got two hearts, and I’m not entirely certain that it’s the female bit that makes me unqualified! But I think it’s a tiny percentage, I think most people have managed to get over that.”
She also discussed the process of putting together her Doctor’s costume, which she described as “really collaborative”.
Jodie Whittaker on The Doctor's new costume…
Hear the full interview with @shaunwkeaveny here: https://t.co/ITcX5ZZG8l pic.twitter.com/haiId15jPj
— BBC Radio 6 Music (@BBC6Music) September 28, 2018
She also described the role of the Doctor in itself as being “liberating”, saying that “you’re given this wonderful character of the Doctor that has traits throughout the fifty-five year history that you honour, but it’s all in the writing, so all the hard work’s done by [head writer] Chris Chibnall and all these amazing writers in the writers room”.
Jodie also explained to Keaveny about how she tried to bring her own personality into her performance as the Doctor: “I’m quite hyperactive as a person, so I thought ‘I’ll bring that trait’. I don’t sit still, so that was me in between scenes usually on jobs. I just thought, chuck that in, see how that goes, finger crossed it worked! Because if not, we’ll all know about it in a few weeks!”
Jodie confessed to not being a life-long fan of Doctor Who as other Doctors have been in previous years: “I think you’d have to live under a rock to have never seen an episode, but I was not brought up in a Whovian house and it’s not something I’ve watched from start to finish – I’ve seen the odd episode.”
She explained that this was something of a bonus for new head writer Chris Chibnall, as it allowed her to come at the role of the Doctor with “a fresh perspective”: “I really want to feel that in every moment I’m really listening to the other actors, and responding with as much natural instinct as I can rather than thinking ‘Is this a character choice that I’ve potentially nicked from someone else?’ Because all the bits about the traits of the Doctor are in the script”.
Whittaker also confirmed that each episode of the upcoming series will be a standalone story: “It has the character arc of Yaz, played by Mandip, and Ryan played by Tosin, and Graham played by Brad, and it has our character journey throughout […] but if you’re out on a few Sundays, and you come in at episode six, you’re gonna get an action adventure in this hour that will take you on an amazing journey and have an ending for you to feel satisfied at the end of it.”
Jodie Whittaker’s full interview with Shaun Keaveny is available to listen to on the BBC Radio 6Music website.
