Matt Smith has expressed his feelings about the latest announcement of Ncuti Gatwa being cast as the 14th Doctor in Doctor Who.
Smith was a celebrity guest at the Paris Fan Festival over the weekend, during which he participated in a Q&A panel. Over the course of this panel, he spoke about his time as the titular character in Doctor Who as well as his involvement in other projects such as the upcoming Game of Thrones sequel House of the Dragon.
Twitter user @SafeSpaceDrWho posted a video on Twitter where Smith commented on the new casting. He revealed that he has seen Gatwa in the Netflix series Sex Education and is sure he will be ‘a cracker.’
“I’ve seen him in Sex Education. There’s a warmth and width and real depth to his talent, that I think that he’s, umm….
Honestly, I think it’s an inspiring bit of casting. I’m really, really excited for the show and I think he’s going to be a cracker.”
Smith played the 11th Doctor in Doctor Who from 2010 to 2014, after David Tennant. Since then, he has gone on to star in multiple films and TV series such as Terminator Genisys, The Crown, and Morbius, and will be soon seen in HBO’s House of the Dragon.
The BBC recently announced that Gatwa will be the 14th Doctor, with Jodie Whittaker wrapping up her role as the 13th Doctor in the upcoming Christmas special. His casting made history as he is the first person of color playing the lead role in the British Sci-fi series where he will be working with Doctor Who‘s original showrunner, Russell T. Davies.
Apart from bagging the BBC series and his continuing presence as the affable Eric Effiong in Netflix’s Sex Education, currently, Gatwa is busy filming the live-action Barbie, alongside Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.