Doctor Who's Arthur Darvill on why he, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan would "jump at the chance" to return

"I imbued it with a kind of low-level panic attack the whole time," Doctor Who star Arthur Darvill says of his audition to play companion Rory Williams. "That seemed to work."

"My impression of it was that Rory was very much the eyes of the audience, and the person on the outside questioning everything," he recalls

"And I just found that really funny, in this show where everything's so madcap, and everyone just goes, 'Oh yeah, well, of course there's aliens here,' to be the person going, 'Well, hang on a minute, what is actually going on? This is really panic-inducing!'"

Sitting down for an in-depth chat for Radio Times' Doctor Who Insiders, Darvill looks back on his time as Rory Williams, husband to Karen Gillan's Amy Pond and companion in his own right.

He starred on the show from 2010 to 2012, alongside Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor. Before he was cast, he and Smith were already good friends after starring together in the stage show Swimming with Sharks, which made the audition process at least a little less panic-inducing.

"I went for a recall with Matt, which was lovely," he remembers. "Then we got a car - because Matt got driven everywhere, very important! We got in the back of the car back to London, and he was like, 'I think you've got a job, mate! It's gonna be great.'

"So I got really razzed up about it. He took me to show me the TARDIS set, and I was like, 'I think I'm building my hopes up a little bit too much!'"

Of course, Darvill secured the job, but the challenge was only just beginning. He, Smith and Gillan, along with showrunner Steven Moffat, were about to usher the beloved BBC sci-fi into a new era. David Tennant had exited as the Tenth Doctor, with previous showrunner Russell T Davies also bowing out, and all eyes were on what was next.

But Darvill recalls being "so protected" from those pressures. "Obviously I was quite nervous because I think I was more nervous as a person back then, but I tried to put that into the character, which was useful. But we just had such a laugh," he recalls.

It turns out they had nothing to worry about, with their first episode, The Eleventh Hour, being acclaimed by critics and fans alike.

"There was this fateful day where we watched a rough cut of it with no music," Darvill remembers. "The music does so much work in Doctor Who, but we watched it with no music, no VFX. So it was all just like little cartoons on the screen of Prisoner Zero and whatever. We sat in the flat with Piers [Wenger] and Beth [Willis] and Steven, who were the producers on it, and myself, Matt and Karen watched.

"I still don't really watch myself on anything, it's kind of traumatising. I just don't find it very helpful, it makes me quite self-conscious. So just watching an edit of it was the first time where I was like, 'Oh wow. This is real.' It had the opening titles music, and as soon as that came on, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I was like, 'Oh yeah, this is real. It's going to be on television and everyone's going to watch it.'

"It was terrifying, but it really paid off, and I think that's a testament to Steven and Piers and Beth, and everyone who made it. I think that script is incredible. Karen and Matt were just extraordinary. And we just really committed to it and had such a good time.

"That episode is one of the only ones I've watched more than once. Some of them I've never seen but I think it's a brilliant piece of television. It's got fairytale. The emotional setup of it is so beautiful.

"It establishes so many characters, establishes places, and really just relaunches the show in such a beautiful, grand, serious and funny way. Matt had, immediately, that ability to play this kooky alien who seemed both really young and really old at the same time."

Darvill added of his close relationship with Smith and Gillan: "We all just bonded so closely and had this mad shared experience that I think will take us through the rest of our lives.

"Every time you see us coming out of the TARDIS - when you're in a field or in a village, we're just standing in a box, and we're waiting for quite a long time in a very dark box. I should go back and watch all of those moments where we come out of the TARDIS because we just tried to make each other laugh as much as possible, which is very unprofessional."

At the time, Darvill had no idea how important or impactful his character was going to be. Well, he believed he didn't. A recent conversation with Moffat has revealed that the showrunner did in fact tell Darvill the full storyline, a chat that the actor swiftly forgot.

"I said to him the other day, 'You didn't tell us anything,' and he was like, 'I did. I definitely explained all of it to you.' But they were very [good] - whenever I died, they were very, very clear that I was coming back!" he says.

Over his time in the show, Rory's role gradually got bigger and bigger, with one of the highlights being the Last Centurion storyline, which saw the character guarding his wife Amy for almost 2,000 years.

"It was such an amazing thing," he says of that storyline. "All the scripts, especially Steven's scripts, that have that through-line, the big story, you just open them and go, 'Oh, wow.' It's always surprising. He always does it in a surprising way and in a really emotionally true but very entertaining way.

"I just couldn't wait to film all those scenes. It was a gift of a part to have, to play all this stuff. We felt like we were shooting Indiana Jones, the scale of those two episodes. It was like, 'Oh, wow. We're doing a Spielberg!'"

As for the memorable plot twist that saw Alex Kingston's River Song being revealed as Amy and Rory's daughter?

"We were all having dinner, and I guessed it, because we were all trying to work out what the choice was going to be. I turned around to Alex and went, 'Is it that you're our daughter?' And she just looked me in the eye with a little twinkle and went, 'Hello, daddy!'" he laughs.

Plus, the trio got the chance to work with incredible guest stars.

"I couldn't believe Olivia Colman was in it at first, because I was such a fan of hers and she was in such a tiny part in The Eleventh Hour," Darvill recalls. "Mark Williams playing my dad was brilliant, because I've grown up watching him on The Fast Show.

"Toby Jones, man, he's so good - and that episode was so strange. I've worked with him since, and he applied the same rigour and dedication to that part as he does with everything else.

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"And I think Doctor Who works best when you've got people like that, people who take it really seriously. The funny comes out of the situations but everyone has to kind of play it for real. And Toby's just a master of that. He's so brilliant, and can be really arch and really play up to the campness of it, but without tipping it over into into anything silly."

But perhaps Darvill's most memorable moment on the show was his and Gillan's tear-jerking ending, which saw Amy and Rory trapped in the past by the Weeping Angels.

"It was beautiful and messy and emotional and really dramatic," he points out. "I watched it with a bunch of my mates when it was on, which is very unlike me, and we all got really emotional.

"Obviously it's hard to separate my experience of making it to what it is on screen, I suppose, because it was also our ending, leaving the show. I mean, those scenes weren't the very last things we filmed, but we knew we were going, so there was all of that in there.

"But I'm glad it wasn't lingered on, and I'm glad it wasn't drawn out. It was like, rip the plaster off and they're gone. And I think it's really good storytelling."

In recent years, Doctor Who has seen a variety of its stars return - so we have to ask the question. Could we see the trio back in action?

"We all joke with each other because we're all still good mates, we'll joke like 'maybe this year, maybe we'll be back.' I like the idea that when we're really old, we'll go back. I presume it's going to go on forever.

"But yeah, if the scripts were right. It was funny, when we left, we all were like, 'Nope, never going back. It was too good. We don't want to ruin it.' But now we've gone off and done our own things...

"Reminiscing is dangerous at times, but you look back and go, well, it was really formative and the most fun I've had on almost anything. I think it would be silly to rule it out. But it's not in our hands. If the opportunity came up, yeah, of course, I think we'd all jump at the chance."

The latest episode of Doctor Who stunned fans when Ncuti Gatwa's departing Doctor regenerated into Billie Piper. While it's uncertain at the moment as to whether she's the new Doctor or not, surely the search will soon be on for a new companion.

As for any advice he has for taking on the role of a companion?

"Just enjoy it," he says.

"I think about this a lot, because it's such a mad idea. It's really sci-fi and really detailed, and has its own law and its own rules and its own amazing fandom who care so much about it and it's this really specific type of British television.

"I can't think of another example of it that does what this does, because it manages to straddle that sci-fi thing with being also Saturday night TV. It shouldn't work as an idea, but it does. It works so brilliantly well.

"And I think when you're on the show, the only thing you can do is try and enjoy it as much as possible, because there's nothing else like it, and every script's completely different.

"As a companion, you will spend a lot of time just saying the word 'Doctor' and standing in the background, and that's fine, but when you do get to do stuff, it's going to be really exciting, brilliant, challenging stuff, and you have to take it as seriously as any other job and any other role and immerse yourself in it - but it's just so much fun.

"It's really easy to get bogged down in all the stuff that we actors have to complain about, but it's such a gift."

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