David Tennant

At 53 years old, David Tennant has this physical status:

David John Tennant (né McDonald), born 18 April 1971, is a Scottish actor.

He appeared in the tenth incarnation of Doctor Who (2005–2010), Barty Crouch, Jr. in the BBC crime drama series Broadchurch (2013–2017), and Bengrave in the Netflix superhero movie Jessica Jones (2015–2019). Tennant has performed extensively in theatre and film, including a portrayal of the title character in a 2008 film of Hamlet and the voice of Scrooge McDuck in DuckTales (2017–present).

He was nominated for Special Recognition by the National Television Award in 2015.

Early life

Tennant was born David John McDonald in Bathgate, West Lothian, on 18 April 1971, the son of Helen (née McLeod; 1940–2007) and Alexander "Sandy" McDonald (1937–2016), a minister who served as the Moderator of the Church of Scotland. He and his brother Blair and sister Karen grew up in Ralston, Renfrewshire, where his father, Robert, was the local minister. William and Agnes Blair, two of his maternal great-grandparents, were Northern Irish Protestants from County Londonderry who were among the Ulster Covenant's signatories in 1912. William was also a member of the Orange Order. While playing for William and Agnes, Tennant's maternal grandfather, footballer Archie McLeod, met William and Agnes' daughter Nellie. McLeod was descendant from tenant farmers on the Isle of Mull.

Tennant told his parents that he wanted to become an actor because he was a fan of Doctor Who, but his parents encouraged him to seek more conventional work. He later stated that he was "absurdly single-minded" in pursuing an acting career. He listened to almost every Doctor Who episode for years, and he even met fourth Doctor actor Tom Baker at a book-signing event in Glasgow. He was educated at Ralston Primary School and Paisley Grammar School and was involved in many school productions. actress Edith MacArthur, who told his parents that she believed he'd be a good theatre actor after she saw him perform when he was ten years old, was spotted by his talent.

Tennant studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, which was then known as the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He passed an audition for the Academy at the age of 16, becoming one of the academy's youngest students and attending classes between the ages of 17 and 20. He took his stage name from Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant after discovering that there was another David McDonald already represented by the actor's union Equity. He later had to legally change his surname in order to comply with the American Screen Actors Guild's guidelines.

Personal life

In interviews, Tennant rarely discusses his personal life, citing his assertion that "relationships are difficult enough with the individuals you're having them with, much less public speaking out about them." He has stated that religion "shouldn't have" shaped his character, as well as that he admits he is a regular churchgoer.

Tennant is married to actress Georgia Moffett, making him the son-in-law of actress Sandra Dickinson and Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison. During the filming of the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Daughter," in which she played the genetically engineered daughter of Tennant's Tenth Doctor, the pair met in 2008. They married in December 2011 and live in London's Chiswick district. They have five children, including Ty Tennant, Moffett's child from a previous marriage whom Tennant adopted. Ty has appeared in Tolkien and the 2019 television adaptation of War of the Worlds. Olive, the couple's daughter, was born on March 29, 2011. Olive had a cameo in The Five (ish) Doctors Reboot at the age of two as John Barrowman's daughter. She made her film debut in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast at ten years old. Wilfred, Tennant and Moffett's son, was born on May 2nd, 2013. Tennant revealed on November 9, 2015, that they had recently adopted Doris. Birdie was their second child at the time on October 13, 2019.

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Career

Tennant made his debut in secondary school while still in secondary school. He appeared in an anti-smoking film produced by the Glasgow Health Board when he was 16 years old, was screened in schools and appeared on television. He appeared in an episode of Dramarama the following year. Tennant's first professional appearance since being drafted in drama school was in a revival of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui co-starring Ashley Jensen; one of a few plays in which he appeared as part of the agitprop 7:84 Theatre Company. Davina, a transgender barmaid, made his first television appearance in Rab C Nesbitt as a transgender barmaid. He appeared in many plays at the Dundee Repertory Theatre in the 1990s.

After impressing director David Blair during recording of another drama, Tennant was given his first major television role in the BBC Scotland drama series Takin' Over the Asylum (1994). "They wanted someone who could believably act 19 and bonkers," Tennant said at the audition. Arabella Weir, a comedian and writer, appeared on screen in Takin' Over the Asylum. When he returned to London shortly after, he became a godfather to her youngest daughter's age. He has appeared in various productions since being a guest on Doctor Who's audio drama Exile (during which Weir played an alternate Doctor), and as panelists on More4's Doctor Who audio drama Exile (after Tennant left the series). In Jude (1996), one of his first big-screen appearances was in which he starred a drunken undergraduate who challenges Eccleston's Jude to test his logic.

Tennant was active in the British theatre, often appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In As You Like It (1996), Shakespeare's first Shakespearean appearance was cast as the romantic lead; rather than merely portraying the role, he was cast as the jester Touchstone, which he played in his natural Scottish accent. He later trained in comedy, appearing in The Comedy of Errors and Captain Jack Absolute in The Rivals, although he also appeared in Romeo and Juliet. He appeared in The Pillowman, a 2003 London film by Martin McDonagh.

Tennant appeared in several audio dramas of Shakespeare for the Arkangel Shakespeare collection (1998). His roles include a recreation of his Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors, as well as Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, Edgar in King Lear, and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, all of whom perform in his natural accent. Tennant appeared in the Royal National Theatre, London, in 1995, playing Nicholas Beckett in Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw. In television, he appeared in the first episode of Reeves and Mortimer's resurgent Randall and Hopkirk in 2000 as an eccentric artist. He appeared in a sequence of television commercials for Boots the Chemists during the 2002 Christmas season. Tennant appeared in the film Bright Young Things in 2003. In a Play, he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. In previews on April 10, the UK premiere was held at the Donmar Warehouse, opening on April 10 and closing on May 4, 2002. Charlotte Randle (Dawn), Dominic Rowan (Bill), and Gary McDonald (William) were also included in the cast, and Mark Brokaw directed them all. This production went from June 26 (opening July 1) to August 10, 2002. In 2004, and 2005, he began to appear on television more frequently, mostnotably in He Knew He Was Right (2004), Blackpool (2004), Casanova (2005), and The Quatermass Experiment (2005). Barty Crouch Jr. appeared in the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire later this year.

Doctor Who returned to British screens in March 2005, with Christopher Eccleston playing the Ninth Doctor in the first series. Tennant appeared in the episode "The Parting of the Ways" (2005), making his first, brief appearance as the Tenth Doctor, and also appeared in a special 7-minute mini-episode broadcast on November 18, 2005, as part of the 2005 Children in Need appeal. In late July 2005, Doctor Who's new series began filming. The Doctor was the first full length outing as he was the Doctor. "The Christmas Invasion," a 60-minute special on Christmas Day 2005, was the first broadcast on Christmas Day 2005. During rehearsals for The Quatermass Experiment, Tennant was officially offered the role of Doctor. Despite the fact that the casting wasn't confirmed until later in April, both actors and crew became aware of the rumors surrounding Tennant's Dr. Patrick, who changed his first line to Tennant's Dr. Brigant from "Good to have you back, Gordon" to "Good to have you back, Doctor" as a deliberate mention on the live broadcast.

Tennant has expressed excitement about achieving his childhood dream. In a radio interview, he said, "Who wouldn't want to be the Doctor?"

I've even got my own TARDIS!"

Readers of Doctor Who magazine voted Tennant "Best Doctor" over perennial favorite Tom Baker in 2006. Russell T Davies, a writer, made the decision not to use Tennant's own Scottish accent for the character because he did not want the Doctor's accent to be "touring the regions," rather than using Estuary English. Tennant has gone on record as saying he was not upset about not being able to perform the role in his own accent, even though tabloids claimed otherwise. However, he was delighted to be able to use his own accent in one episode, as the Doctor briefly disguised as "Dr. James McCrimmon" of Edinburgh in Tooth and Claw, a nod to second Doctor's companion Jamie McCrimmon.

He appeared in the BBC's animated Doctor Who webcast Scream of the Shalka. Tennant was filming in a neighbouring studio at the time, and when he discovered what was going to be recorded next door, he convinced the producer to give him a small part. His fascination with the series had also grown as a result of several audio plays based on the Doctor Who television series, although he did not appear in any of these performances. His first appearance in the Seventh Doctor audio Colditz, in which he appeared as a Nazi lieutenant guard at Colditz Castle. Tennant was a central figure in the Big Finish audio play series Dalek Empire III as Galanar, a young man given the opportunity to uncover the Daleks' secrets. He appeared in UNIT: The Wasting for Big Finish in 2005, repeating his role as Brimmicombe-Wood from a Doctor Who Was Unbound, Sympathy for the Devil. He appeared alongside Nicholas Courtney, who reconstructed Sir Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart's role in both audio and video productions. In another Doctor Who Unbound Play Exile, he played an unidentified Time Lord. Tennant was caught on the job of the Doctor in the film Unit, which was revealed to be news. In Big Finish's version of Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (2004), he appeared as the lead actor. For BBC Worldwide, he filmed abridged audio books of The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner, The Feast of the Drowned by Stephen Cole and Justin Richards' The Resurrection Casket.

"Do You Remember The First Time" is Steven Moffat's episode "Blink," he made his directorial debut on the Doctor Who Confidential episode that precedes Steven Moffat's "Blink." "The program "Miranda" aired on September 9, 2007. In 2007, Tennant's Tenth Doctor appeared in a Doctor Who Special for Children in Need, written by Steven Moffat and titled "Time Crash." Georgia Moffett (as "Jenny"), Davison's daughter, appeared in the 2008 film "The Doctor's Daughter" starring the two children. Georgia Moffett married David Tennant's wife later in life.

In an animated version of Doctor Who's Totally Doctor Who, The Infinite Quest, which aired on CBBC, Tennant was featured as Doctor Who. In addition to being the Doctor in another animated six-part Doctor Who series, Dreamland, he appeared as the Doctor. In a two-part story in Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures, a Tennant guest appeared as the Doctor. In 2008, he continued to act the Tenth Doctor in the revived program's fourth series. On the other hand, he revealed on October 29th, 2008, that after a three-hour production, he would step down from the position. In four special episodes in 2009, he appeared as Doctor in four special episodes before his final episode, starring Matt Smith, appeared on January 1, 2010.

Tennant and Billie Piper returned to Doctor Who for the 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor," with then-star Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman and guest star John Hurt. He appeared in the one-off 50th anniversary comedy adaptation The Five (ish) Doctors Reboot directed by Peter Davison in the same month.

Tennant will reprise his role as the Tenth Doctor in three new Big Finish stories in October 2015. The stories include current and former Doctor Who actors, including Strax actor Dan Starkey, former Davros actor Terry Molloy, and many veterans of Big Finish, including Niky Wardley, who portrayed Eighth Doctor companion Tamsin. In May 2016, the three stories were published.

Big Finish Productions' Three new audio dramas were released in November 2017, with Tennant reprised as the Tenth Doctor alongside Billie Piper as Rose Tyler. Tennant returned to the role in London on 13 and 14 July 2018, as part of the live Muppets show The Muppets Take the O2 (in which the Tenth Doctor appeared onstage as part of a live Pigs in Space sketch).

Tennant will return to the show in May 2022, as Donna Noble will reprise her role as Donna Noble. Tennant will return as the Tenth Doctor after being rumored as the Tenth Doctor in October 2022. In November 2023, the three 60th anniversary special episodes will air.

Tennant appeared in the early December 2005 ITV drama Secret Smile as a Doctor. The National Video Archive of Performance for the Victoria and Albert Museum Theatre Collection caught Jimmy Porter's appearance in Look Back in Anger at the Theatre Royal, Bath, and Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. In a rehearsed reading, he revived this performance for the anniversary of the Royal Court Theatre. In January 2006, he went on a one-day break from shooting Doctor Who to Richard Hoggart in a dramatization of the 1960 Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity lawsuit, The Chatterley Affair. For the online television station BBC Four, Andrew Davies wrote the script and directed by Doctor Who's James Hawes. In The Guardian newspaper, Hoggart's uncle, Simon, praised Tennant's achievement.

Tennant appeared in Recovering, a 90-minute BBC One drama written by Tony Marchant on February 25, 2007. He played Alan, a self-made building site manager who attempted to recover his life after suffering a crippling brain injury. Sarah Parish, a friend who appeared in Blackpool and an episode of Doctor Who, was his costar in the drama. "We're like George and Mildred," she joked, "we're probably doing a ropey old sitcom in a terraced house in Preston in 20 years. He appeared in Learners, a BBC comedy drama written by and starring Jessica Hynes (another Doctor Who Costar), in which he appeared as a Christian driving instructor who became the object of a student's love. Learners were featured on BBC One on November 11, 2007. In the 2007 finale episode of the BBC/HBO comedy series Extras with Ricky Gervais, Tennant appeared as the Doctor. In November 2008, Tennant played Sir Arthur Eddington in the BBC and HBO biographical film Einstein and Eddington, which was shot in Cambridge and Hungary. Tennant appeared on Top Gear in December 2007, where he denied having unsuccessfully auditioned for a role on Taggart 26 times. Tennant is the voice behind Argos' 2007 advertising campaign, and she appeared in ads for The Proclaimers' 2007 album and learndirect in June 2008. Tennant has also contributed to Tesco Mobile, Nintendo Wii, and American Express advertisements.

In May 2008, Tennant appeared in a Channel 4 episode of Trick or Treat. Tennant was seen in the episode correctly forecasting future events by using automatic writing. "One of Doctor Who For David's appeals is time travel," Derren Brown, show host, is quoted as saying, "I wanted to give him the opportunity." He was outspoken and up for it, and I got a positive response. He's a natural screamer!" Tennant was also on the final episode of the series with the rest of the cast members remaining to participate in one last experiment. Tennant appeared in the 2008 episode "Holofile 703: Us and Phlegm" of Radio series Nebulous (a parody of Doctor Who) as Doctor Beep, with his Lothian accent. He appeared in the 2008 English language DVD re-release of the 2006 animated Norwegian film Free Jimmy alongside Woody Harrelson. Simon Pegg, a leading voice actor in the film, appears in the English-language version of the film.

Tennant narrated the digital planetarium space dome film "We Are Astronomers" directed by the UK National Space Centre in early 2009. He and Davina McCall met on Red Nose Day 2009 on March 13, 2009. On a special Comic Relief edition of Top of the Pops, he joined Franz Ferdinand onstage to play the guitar on their song "No You Girls." Tennant filmed St. Trinian's II: The Legend of Fritton's Gold in summer 2009. In December 2009, the film was released. He hosted the Masterpiece Contemporary programming strand on the American Public Broadcasting Service from October 2009 to October 2009. In December 2009, he filmed Rex Is Not Your Attorney, a Chicago lawyer who helps clients to represent themselves when they encounter panic attacks. The pilot was not picked up, and the whole project was shelved. In November 2009, he co-hosted the Absolute Radio Breakfast Show with Christian O'Connell for three days in a row. In October 2010, he returned to co-host the show for a day. In a one-part BBC Radio 4 version of Of Mice and Men in the Classic Serial strand, George appeared as George on March 7, 2010. In October 2010, Dave played Dave, a man who was struggling to raise five children after his partner's death in the British drama Single Father. He was nominated as Best Actor at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards 2010 for his work in this field.

Despite the majority of his work being television-based, Tennant has described theatre work as his "default mode of being." In Love's Labours Lost in 2008, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), to perform Hamlet alongside Patrick Stewart and Berowne. He appeared in Stratford-Avon as Hamlet from August to November 2008, and was also an observer for Berowne in repertory between October and November. Hamlet appeared in the Novello Theatre in London's West End in December 2008, but Tennant suffered a prolapsed disc during previews and was unable to perform from 8 December 2008 to 2 January 2009, during which time Edward Bennett was in control of his understudy. On January 3, 2009, he returned to his role in the company and continued to perform until the end on January 10th. Tennant's Hamlet debut was highly lauded. He appeared on a television film adaptation of the RSC's 2008 Hamlet for BBC Two in 2009. A photograph of Tennant as Hamlet on a stamp issued by the Royal Mail on April 12, 2011 to commemorate the RSC's fiftieth anniversary.

Jimmy Murphy, a assistant manager and assistant manager, played in United States on "Busby Babes" and the 1958 Munich air tragedy. He appeared in one episode of This Is Jinsy and later began filming True Love, a semi-improvised BBC One drama series based in Margate, Kent, which aired in June 2012. Tennant will appear in the film adaptation of Postman Pat called You Know You're the One later this year. In October 2011, Tennant shot Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger in Coventry. Mr. Peterson, the main character, put-upon teacher, and his "golden brother" twin brother and rival played dual roles.

Tennant was the lead in a one-off drama for Sky Arts in April 2012. He filmed Spies of Warsaw for BBC Four between April and June, portraying Jean-François Mercier in the lead role. This drama series shot in Poland is based on Alan Furst's book Spies of Warsaw. Tennant auditioned for Hannibal Lecter's role in NBC's Hannibal; he was barely beaten for the role portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen. For BBC Two, he began filming The Political Husband, an optimistic cabinet minister who takes drastic action after his wife's career begins to outshine him. In 2012, Tennant hosted the first comedy quiz show Comedy World Cup, which aired on Saturday nights for seven episodes.

Tennant was appointed to the Royal Shakespeare Company board in January 2012, and was on the jury deciding the new artistic director and selecting the new artistic director. Tennant will return to the RSC for the 2013 winter season, playing the title role in Richard II at Stratford-upon-Avon (from 10 October to 16 November 2014), as he moved to the Barbican Centre in London (from 9 December to 25 January 2014. Tennant appeared in the RSC's 'King and Country' cycle in 2016, beginning at the Barbican Theatre in London before moving to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.

Tennant appeared on the ITV detective drama Broadchurch as DI Alec Hardy from 2013 to 2017. The first series was shot in Clevedon, North Somerset, and Bridport, Dorset, between August and November 2012, and it was broadcast in March 2013. Tennant produced the second series of Broadchurch in mid-2014 and the third between May and October 2016. Tennant produced the US remake of Broadchurch, renamed Gracepoint, from January to May 2014.

Tennant produced The Escape Artist for BBC One in which he portrayed a brilliant junior barrister who had yet to lose a case from late January to March 2013. In October and November 2013, the three-part series appeared on BBC One. In What We Did on Our Holiday, a semi-improvised comedy film shot in Scotland, Tennant starred Rosamund Pike and Billy Connolly; the shooting took place from 17 June to July 2013. In September 2014, the film was released.

He appeared in three ads in 2012 in a multi-million-pound advertising for Virgin Media. After a BBC Worldwide lawsuit, one advert was voluntarily withdrawn after the corporation determined that it violated the corporation's policies by including references to Doctor Who, which seemed to be a commercial endorsement of the service. He is the narrator of Kinect Sports Rivals, a Xbox One video game that was launched in 2014.

In Jessica Jones, a Marvel and Netflix television series, Tennant also portrayed the villainous Kilgrave. All 13 episodes were released on November 20, 2015.

Tennant appeared on Radio 4 panel show Just a Minute on February 9, 2015, becoming the show's most popular debutant. In the 2015 Square Enix video game Just Cause 3, he also voiced the Propaganda Minister. Tennant's name was revealed for Scottish film I Feel Fine, a thriller set in Glasgow in the 1980s. However, the film has been postponed indefinitely since January 2016.

Mad to Be Normal (previously named Metanoia), a biopic of the influential Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing directed by Gizmo Films, began in February 2016.

Tennant appeared in writer/director Daisy Aitkens' first feature film, You, Me and Him, in 2017. Tennant's wife, Georgia, produced the film, but Davison was forced to pull out of the film in October 2016 due to a scheduling conflict. Tennant appeared in Patrick Marber's Don Juan in Soho at the Wyndham's Theatre from March to June 2017. Alan Young, the character's long-serving voice actor who died in May 2016, became the voice of Scrooge McDuck for Disney XD's DuckTales revival in 2017.

In the thriller film Bad Samaritan (2018), written by Brandon Boyce and directed by Dean Devlin, Tennant played psychopathic villain Cale Erendreich. Tennant appeared in full on Amazon Prime Video on May 31, 2019 and was unveiled on BBC Two on January 15, 2020.

Tennant launched his own podcast in February 2019, titled David Tennant Does a Podcast With... Olivia Colman, Whoopi Goldberg, Jodie Whittaker, Ian McKellen, Jon Hamm, Gordon Brown, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Garner, Krysten Ritter, Samantha Bee, Tina Fey, and Michael Sheen appear on the podcast.

In Deadwater Fell, a Scottish true crime miniseries that premiered on Channel 4, Tennant stars as a doctor accused of murdering his family. He received his first credit as an executive producer for the series.

Dennis Nilsen, a Scottish serial killer, was portrayed in Des, a three-part miniseries on ITV in September. He received the International Emmy Award for Best Actor for his work.

He appeared in Staged, a television series starring Michael Sheen in 2020 and 2021. "David Tennant and Michael Sheen squabbled over Zoom as exaggerated, ecstatic, hyper-thespian interpretations of themselves in an actors-playing-actors miniseries with the exact same energy as a late-night Comic Relief sketch; fifteen-minute episodes where you could see familiar actors with their off-duty haircuts said words that seemed authentic," said Guardian writer Joel Golby. It was fine, and it was smart, and it fit within the style's boundaries."

In September 2022, Tennant appeared as Reverend Harry Watling in BBC1's Inside Man, a Steven Moffat book. Viewers and commentators alike gave the series mixed praise on September 26th, 2022.

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