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Peter Dougan Capaldi is a Scottish actor and Academy Award-winning director. He has played three roles in the Doctor Who franchise, most notably that of the Twelfth Doctor. He first played the Doctor in a brief cameo in The Day of the Doctor, broadcast on 23 November 2013, and succeeded Matt Smith in the role officially in the following story, The Time of the Doctor, first broadcast on 25 December 2013.
Like Sixth Doctor Colin Baker before him, Capaldi appeared in a different role in Doctor Who prior to playing the Doctor. Capaldi portrayed Caecilius in The Fires of Pompeii, first broadcast in 2008. He also appeared in all five episodes of Torchwood: Children of Earth in 2009, playing John Frobisher.
At 55 years of age at both the time of his casting and the time of filming his first scenes as the Doctor, Capaldi was the same age as William Hartnell and the oldest actor since Hartnell to begin playing the Doctor on a regular basis (John Hurt was older by almost 20 years when he first appeared in the role, but his War Doctor incarnation was never intended to be ongoing).
Capaldi is the third Scottish actor to be cast as the Doctor, after Sylvester McCoy and David Tennant. Like McCoy, but unlike Tennant, it was confirmed that Capaldi would play the part with his natural Scottish accent.
Relationship with Doctor Who
During the Jon Pertwee years of Doctor Who, young man Capaldi sent scripts to the production office. Barry Letts began a correspondence with Capaldi, which eventually resulted in an invitation for the youngster to visit BBC Television Centre. Capaldi met Letts, Terrance Dicks and Pertwee. He later cited the incident as formative to his career as a professional actor, writer and director. (BBC DVD: The Monster of Peladon)
Capaldi was announced as the Twelfth Doctor in a live broadcast simulcast worldwide on 4 August 2013. His appearance on the programme was notable for his striking a pose identified with William Hartnell's First Doctor — adjusting his lapels — as he took the stage.
His debut appearance during the climax of The Day of the Doctor was kept a surprise from viewers as the BBC had indicated he would debut at Christmas. His initial appearance, lasting only one and a half seconds, revealed little other than his hand pulling a lever in his TARDIS and an extreme close-up on his eyes.
According to interviews with David Bradley and Mark Gatiss, Capaldi visited the set of the 50th anniversary docudrama, An Adventure in Space and Time, prior to his being cast as the Doctor.
In November 2015 he appeared with Peter Jackson in a spoof video called Home Invasion in which he, as the Twelfth Doctor, attempts to get Jackson to sig a contract to direct an episode of Doctor Who. He also voiced the moans and squeaks of Sprout Boy in the 2015 BBC Christmas Ident.
Other notable work
Capaldi is the first Academy Award-winner to be cast as the Doctor. He received the award in the Live Action Short Film category for Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life starring Richard E Grant and Crispin Letts (son of Barry Letts), which he wrote and directed.
Capaldi began his acting career in 1983 with a supporting role in the film Local Hero. Prior to this, he attended art school in Glasgow and fronted several musical groups, including one featuring Craig Ferguson, who later became the host of an American talk show, as well as an avid promoter of Doctor Who.
Outside Doctor Who, he is perhaps best known to audiences as the foul-mouthed Director of Communications, Malcolm Tucker, throughout the entire run of the BBC sit-com The Thick Of It, which inspired an American series titled Veep. He also played this role in the Oscar-nominated spin-off feature film, In The Loop. He appeared as Tucker for the last time before taking on the role of the Doctor in 2013.
Capaldi was cast as the Doctor while in the midst of filming the first season of The Musketeers, a BBC One series in which he plays antagonist Cardinal Richelieu. The 10-episode series began airing in the UK in January 2014, and it was confirmed that, due to his new commitments to Doctor Who, Capaldi will not return to the series if it is renewed for a second season.
Around the time of the casting announcement, Capaldi was appearing in a small role in the Hollywood disaster movie World War Z as a doctor from the World Health Organisation (WHO). After he was cast as the Doctor, media attention was given to the fact that he was credited in the film as "WHO Doctor."
Prior to the broadcast of Series 8, Capaldi was to appear in the Angelina Jolie film Maleficent, but his scenes were cut during the editing.
Outside of acting, Capaldi is also known for presenting a number of arts-related documentaries, including A Portrait of Scotland, and the 2013 production Inside the Mind of Leonardo.
Capaldi is the only actor to play the Doctor to have significant above the line credits on both sides of the camera prior to taking on the job.
Interviews
Peter Capaldi was interviewed in DWM 469 and DWM 477. In issue 477, he talked about his previous connections with the TV series as a child.
In the DWU
Peter Capaldi also exists within the Doctor Who universe, as the Eleventh Doctor said in the comic story The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who that he rescued the actor from a Mandrel. Later in the story, during a visit to a parallel universe where the Doctor is a character in a TV series, the Doctor tells actor Matt Smith that Capaldi would be a good choice to play him on TV.
