Capaldi was Adamant About No Flirting in Series 8
Despite being a life-long fan Capaldi said he needed to be convinced before accepting the role: “I didn’t want to be Doctor Who in a Doctor Who I didn’t like. I had to be convinced the I show was going in a direction I was interested in.”
Speaking about the Doctor and Clara’s relationship, he says: “There’ll be no flirting, that’s for sure. It’s not what this Doctor’s concerned with. It’s quite a fun relationship, but no. I did call and say, ‘I want no Papa-Nicole moments.’ I think there was a bit of tension with that at first, but I was absolutely adamant.”
Capaldi says the costume took a long time to choose: “I tried on everything anybody suggested. We’d go to a costume house and have huge, exhausting sessions of getting dressed up. It’s fine for about 15 minutes, but by the time we’ve done 3.5 hours, it’s like, get me out of this. The most ridiculous outfit, the one I loved, I looked like Count Arthur Strong with a real, old cardigan.”
His thoughts on the costume they finally settled on: “I think it’s quite a hard look. I always wanted him to be in black — I always just saw the Doctor in dark colours. Not tweed. Matt’s a really young cool guy — he can wear anything, but I wanted to strip it back and be very stark.”
In response to criticisms of recent stories becoming too ‘over the top’: “We still blow a lot of s*** up. That’s very important, but it’s going to be a bit different from what we’ve seen over recent years. A bit more gravity. Some situations are more sombre and I think there are more rooted dramatic scenes. Over the past two or three years, which I’ve loved, there has often been a breathless vigour; we still have that attack, but we have another level of drama, another tone. And the scenes are longer.”
Below, Capaldi gives a hilarious response when asked how long his mother bought him the Doctor Who annuals.
