Moffat: Capaldi Will Win Over Smith Diehards
Moffat told SFX magazine: “I’m confident that we’ll sell this Doctor to our existing audience and he will be different enough that people won’t just be miserable that they’re missing Matt.”
Equally he believes Capaldi will bring in plenty of new fans: “There will be people who will come and have a look just because it’s Peter Capaldi. We’ll tell them “You never thought this would be your show, but it is your show.”
He adds: “I was very curious to know how he’d go down. I thought it would go down well, and I thought it was a big declaration of intent with Doctor Who. People do sometimes try to be cynical about Doctor Who, and try to say “It’s not what it was”, despite the fact that you arithmetically can’t prove that in any direction whatsoever.
“We’ve cast one of the most beloved, one of the most distinguished – and one of the few Oscar winning! – actors in the role of the Doctor. It’s such a statement of the importance of Doctor Who and the size of Doctor Who that Peter is so over the moon about doing it, and that we get him.”
“Peter said: ‘This is all I’ve ever wanted, this is huge for me. I just want to be Doctor Who.’ You need someone who cherishes it, who loves it and will take it as seriously, if not more seriously, than anything else.””
Despite all the mash-ups, Moffat assures that Capaldi’s Doctor will be nothing like his foul-mouthed character from The Thick of It: “If you look at that publicity photograph he did for us, with the hand to the face, he’s instantly not Malcolm Tucker. He just banishes that, and you think “He’s the Doctor”.
