Jodie Whittaker quizzes David Tennant on his Doctor Who accent – and reveals she assumed her Doctor would be posh
“There was just something about my accent that I presumed they wouldn’t want,” the actress revealed
Jodie Whittaker has quizzed David Tennant on why he didn’t speak in his Scottish accent when he starred in Doctor Who.
The Thirteenth Doctor and the Tenth – who also both starred in Broadchurch – reunited on David Tennant’s new podcast and when they were discussing playing the Time Lord, the subject of accents came up.
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While Whittaker, in character as the Doctor, has kept her Huddersfield lilt, Tennant swapped his Scottish accent for an English one during his time in the role – and Whittaker wants to know why.
“Why in the world did you pick a different accent?” she asked. “I mean, with all those lines. How stressful was that?”
Tennant explained that he had just carried on with the same accent that he’d spoken with in the 2005 TV series Casanova, which was also penned by his Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies.
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“Well, I’d just done Casanova with Russell and that’s how I’d spoken in Casanova,” he said. “And that’s how they wanted it to be.”
When Whittaker protested that Doctor Who had different lines and therefore he needn’t keep the English accent, Tennant added: “I know, I don’t mind it, I quite like an accent.”
Whittaker then agreed that while she enjoys affecting different accents, the sheer number of lines in Doctor Who meant that putting on a different voice was “never a consideration” for her, although she did “assume” showrunners would want her to make her Time Lord posh.
“I was like, ‘I assume you want it in RP,'" she said. "I don’t know, there was just something about my accent that I presumed they wouldn’t want it.
“And they went, ‘Absolutely not, just use your own voice.’ So that was it.”
