Doctor Who's Samuel West wants to play Morbius alongside Ncuti Gatwa
"Morbius is the gift that keeps on giving."
After the return of the Toymaker in Doctor Who's 60th anniversary special The Giggle, perhaps there's potential for more iconic villains to return.
Actor Samuel West certainly hopes so, as he lends his voice to the villainous Morbius once more.
The villain, first voiced on screen by Michael Spice in the 1976 story The Brain of Morbius, has returned multiple times in audio form, most recently for Big Finish's Dark Gallifrey series.
However, chatting exclusively to RadioTimes.com, actor West expressed his hopes for the character to return to screens to face Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor.
He said: "I'd love to [play Morbius on screen]. I hope I would be on the list for people should he return.
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"It's always hard to know what sort of shape he's going to be in. It may be that they need somebody who looks different or sounds different or moves differently... but Morbius is the gift that keeps on giving.
"He keeps coming back, and it seems impossible to annihilate him.
"I'd love to. I think [the show] is in very good shape. I think Ncuti is brilliant casting and I'd love to work with him. I think he's a fantastic actor. So yeah, I'm cheap and available!"
As West mentions, Morbius has been seen (or heard) in various different forms throughout the years.
"I think vocally it allows you to be quite extreme because of the frustration of not having your own body and needing to embody something," he explained.
"I mean, the good thing about the Big Finish episodes is that they're properly written, they've got big mouth-filling speeches for the tyrants, and so they need a certain amount of vocal size.
"I've had fun playing somebody who is disembodied, and also very badly injured, but who gradually, through assuming powerful people, gets some of his power and his voice back.
"So I've always liked the fact that... I mean, Big Finish jobs are quick, but they allow you to give a performance, sometimes [as] several people, in a well worked out universe with a very faithful audience."
As for what Morbius has got in store in the Dark Gallifrey series?
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"There's some very nasty stuff up his sleeve. I like the fact that he's written with a certain amount of backstory. He's thought to be of bad blood, he was mistreated as a child - if you were playing him on stage and had lots of time for rehearsal, you'd find things that made him who he was.
"But he's also sociopathic and pulls the wings off flies and has had feeling beaten out of him to the extent that he needs to see other people suffer to feel anything, so he's a nasty piece of work!"
Morbius, the first story of Big Finish's new series Dark Gallifrey, is available to buy now.
Doctor Who will return on 11th May on BBC iPlayer and BBC One. Previous seasons are available to stream on BBC iPlayer with episodes of the classic series also available on BritBox – you can sign up for a 7-day free trial here.
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