Richard E Grant

Richard E Grant, born Richard Esterhuysen in, , has made several appearances in Doctor Who. He played the Tenth Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death and voiced a non-canonical animated version of the Ninth Doctor in the webcast animation Scream of the Shalka. His canonical appearances as Doctor Walter Simeon, and later the Great Intelligence, include the 2012 Christmas special, The Snowmen, and The Bells of Saint John.

Grant is one of two actors to have played two separate incarnations of the Doctor, albeit not in a canonical context; Jon Culshaw, played multiple Doctors on the sketch show Dead Ringers, most notably the Fourth and Tenth. While Grant and Culshaw played two separate incarnations of the Doctor in non-canon work they are two out of four actors to have played two different incarnations, the other two actors having done so in canon work; the other two actors were Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor, who briefly played the Sixth Doctor in Time and the Rani, and Paul McGann, the Eighth Doctor, who briefly played the War Doctor in Night of the Doctor.

Between his first and second Doctor Who appearances, Grant was referred to (albeit not by name) in the novel Independence Day. Ace mentioned that she saw Withnail and I in the cinema several days before she was transported to Iceworld and commented that she fancied "the actor who played Withnail".

Outside the Doctor Who universe, Grant appeared in the 1987 cult film Withnail and I, opposite Eighth Doctor actor Paul McGann. He also appared in the films Warlock (1989), Hudson Hawk (1991), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Age of Innocence (1993), Prêt-à-Porter (1994), Spice World (1997), The Little Vampire (2000), Gosford Park (2001), Bright Young Things (2003), and Corpse Bride (2005).

Mr Grant studied English and Drama at University in Capetown, South Africa. He is married to voice coach Joan Washington and has a daughter, Olivia, and a stepson, Tom.

Grant has the somewhat dubious distinction of being the only Doctor Who actor to have been nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award. It was for his performance in Hudson Hawk, a film which Grant himself has described as a "steaming pile of donkey droppings". Fellow Razzie nominee David Selby voiced a character in HMS Surprise but that is part of the Bernice Summerfield series and therefore not a Doctor Who story.