The Chic Geek
Matt Smith thought he was going to be a footballer but ended up embracing Einstein to become a Time Lord. E Jane Dickson finds out how the new Doctor is settling in
Mark Harrison
- E Jane Dickson
This article was published in RT in April 2010 and is part of our digital Doctor Who anniversary bookazine — click here to download it for free.
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Regenerating is a tough gig. Filling the shoes of the most popular Doctor in the history of the world’s most popular sci-fi show is hard enough. When you have precisely 65 minutes to foil your first intergalactic threat, you need to hit the ground running.
“Yeah, no pressure,” laughs Matt Smith, the 27-year-old actor who came, appropriately enough, from nowhere to scoop the title role in the new series of Doctor Who. “My Doctor is like a new-born lamb, trying to discover what these limbs are on his body, but he’s straight into active service. It’s a bit like trying to save the world with flu.”
It seems a safe bet that eight-year-olds all over Britain will soon be plaguing their mums for a bow tie. There’s a fogey-ish charm to the 11th Doctor (Smith prefers “geek chic”) with his worn tweeds and flapping fringe. Smith’s own manner is a likeable blend of puppyish and professorial, with a tendency to talk in italics. Playing the Doctor, he points out, is a little like “giving your Hamlet”. You have to make the part your own.
Matt Smith in Doctor Who as The Doctor. BBC
“I mean,” he says, “the Doctor has always been, and he always will be. But how many parts are there in world TV that could be played by a 27-year-old or a 60-year-old? It’s been wonderful, just exploring the multitudes of him, but it takes a while to evolve a strong identity.”
A graduate of the University of East Anglia, where he studied drama and creative writing, Smith has his own way of accessing this enigmatic character. “I had the part six months prior to shooting anything on camera – and for much of that time it was all a big secret – so I had to find a way of channelling my energy and excitement, my lust, as it were, for creating this persona. I was thinking, ‘Who in the world has a brain and a silliness which is close to the Doctor?’ and then I saw that photograph of Albert Einstein poking his tongue out and it just clicked. I found this book of quotes by Einstein – which I recommend as a life choice, he was such an insightful man – and I started writing short stories about Einstein and the Doctor, where the Doctor was getting irritated with the great man’s buffoonery. He’d be saying, ‘Come on, Albert, keep up!’ and I think that, more than anything, was my way in to the part.”
I started writing short stories about Einstein and the Doctor
Matt Smith
With new head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat on board, the role could be tailored to Smith’s own personality as the season developed. “There’s a slight sort of madness and a great tenderness to the Doctor. I don’t know if that’s me, but he’s also very clumsy and that’s definitely me,” says Smith. “It helps, too, that I’ve always been completely fascinated by the time/space continuum. I was never that into sci-fi – I grew up in that barren age when Doctor Who was taken off the air – but I once shared a house with an obscenely clever guy who was doing his doctorate for Cambridge on the subject of time, and ever since, it has seemed to me the great, omnipotent force of the world. The new series plays so cleverly with the concept of time travel. I don’t know how Steven does it; you think there’s no way he’s going to be able to join those dots and tie the whole thing up but, by God, he does. For me, to go to work and be in touch, on a daily basis, with that crazy, time-bending magic is just incredible.”
Smith needed all his enthusiasm – supplemented by weapons-grade Vitamin C – to carry him through the series’ seven-month shooting schedule at Cardiff HQ, where he featured in practically every scene. “If you’re ill, it’s just tough. I think your head would have to be falling off before you could take a day off.”
Fortunately, Smith is used to pushing himself to the limit. Long before he thought of acting as a career, he was set to be a professional footballer. Selected for Northampton Town under 11 and 12s, Nottingham Forest under 12, 13 and 14s and Leicester City under 15s and 16s, he was on course for the premier league – he remembers playing against Jermaine Pennant who went on to play for Liverpool – when a serious back injury knocked him out of the game. “That was a difficult time for me, for sure. But you know, what doesn’t kill you… And my dad was always very keen to drill into me that it’s not the disappointment that counts, it’s how you react to it.”
Matt Smith and Karen Gillan in Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour. BBC
Smith was switched onto acting by Jerry Hardingham, his drama teacher at Northampton School for Boys. “I can remember his first drama lesson,” says Hardingham. “He possessed this raw power and presence. I knew that if that power could be harnessed, he could go places. I cast him in Twelve Angry Men while he was on holiday, without auditioning him. I rang his mum and told her to tell him he’s doing it; he hasn’t got a choice! He did and he loved it – he got a taste for it.”
I like to have the sonic screwdriver about my person at all times, just twirling it around and flicking it
Matt Smith
In other words, Smith discovered his soccer skills were eminently transferable. “So much of what I do, instinctually, as an actor, comes, I’m sure, from my footballing background,” he says. “There’s supposed to be this divide between art and physical culture, but I look at someone like Zinedine Zidane and I see the pure expression of artistic grace. The courage needed to be a great sportsman applies equally to art in general and acting in particular. So much of acting is about summoning courage and confidence and, as in sport, there are lots of elements of your life that have to be put on a back burner because there’s only one real focus. Not to mention the need for timing, rhythm and balance.”
Matt Smith in the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special. BBC
Rising through the ranks of the National Youth Theatre, Smith appeared in the second run of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, the play that was a springboard for a new wave of British talent including James Corden, Russell Tovey and Dominic Cooper. “They were in the first run,” Smith points out, scrupulously. “I’ve just been working with James [for episode 11 of Doctor Who, The Lodger] – God, he’s funny – and he’s constantly going on about how he was doing History Boys in New York and I was doing it in Milton Keynes. Nothing against Milton Keynes” – Smith seems genuinely concerned not to give offence – “there’s a wonderful theatrical culture there, but New York it ain’t.”
Does he hope to follow previous Doctors David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston to Hollywood? “Why the hell not?” says Smith. “I could do with a bit of poolside. I’d take my mum – she’d love it.”
Certainly he’s keen to pursue new projects in shooting breaks from Who, but he’s not going anywhere before mastering the sonic screwdriver. “I’ve broken four of them,” he confesses. “I like to have it about my person at all times, just twirling it around and flicking it. It’s all part of the magic, isn’t it?”
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For Smith, for now, Doctor Who is where he wants to be. “I feel very safe, literally safe, in the Tardis,” he says. “I can’t quite explain it. Maybe it’s because I know that once it lands, the adventure is about to begin.”
Authors
E Jane Dickson
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