Tennant on Leaving and his Worries about Returning

David Tennant has reflected on leaving behind the Tenth Doctor and admitted he had some concerns about reprising the role for the 50th anniversary.

At last weekend’s Tenth Doctor BFI event, a ponytailed Tennant said: “Part of me would have stayed doing it forever. But it’s one of those things where you just have to take a deep breath and think: ‘If I don’t leave this show now, people will resent me still being there in 25 years.'”

Tennant spoke about slipping back into the role for The Day of the Doctor and admitted he did have a few worries.

In an extract from The Doctor: His Lives And Times [Via], Tennant says: “I thought, ‘Oh this’ll be great’. As the day approaches, I then think , ‘What if Matt feels like I’m stepping on his toes?’ Or, ‘What if I can’t remember how to do it? Surely I’m too old to be doing this now?’

He adds: “The first day, Matt wasn’t there. So the first day it was just me. It was like, ‘Oh yeah, I sort of remember this.’ Then the next day it becomes something different again because we were together. Mind you there’s not as many lines to learn when there’s two of you.”

Speaking about how the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors get on: “They switch between praising each other’s ingenuity to trying to undermine it at every opportunity. You sort of switch from being quite pleased with yourself to being infuriated at your own inadequacies, and I guess that’s kind of writ large, isn’t it, if you meet yourself.”