Doctor Who. It's one of Britain's
biggest television successes,
both here in the U.K. and abroad.
Now over 50 years old and broadcast
all over the world, I say that's quite impressive.
Over the years, the show has seen many changes.
So far we've traveled with eleven doctors and...
An awful lot of companions.
And things are about to change again.
Companion Clara Oswald is about to begin
a whole new adventure
as actor Peter Capaldi steps onboard the TARDIS
to become the twelfth Doctor.
I spent three years playing the fifth Doctor,
but now I want to know what life is like
as the Doctor's companion,
so I'm beginning a journey of my own.
I want to know what it takes to be the ultimate
Doctor Who companion.
Can it be done?
I'm about to find out.
♪ Doctor Who♪ The Ultimate Companion Original Air Date on August 16, 2013
== sync, corrected by elderman == @elder_man
Coming up on my quest for the ultimate companion,
I meet up with the ultimate in Doctor Who talent.
I get the chance to speak to Clara Oswald herself,
actor Jenna Coleman.
The new Doctor ruffles her feathers
in a way that the other Doctor didn't.
I take a stroll down memory lane
with former companion Noel Clarke.
The companions makes it relatable to the guy at home
who's like, "well, I can't quite be the Doctor,
but I could be the companion."
Got it? Thank you. Yeah.
I go to America and hear from the very popular
John Barrowman.
Once you are in this -- I call it
the who family, you're there for
the rest of your life.
I walk the corridors of the Doctor Who studios
with showrunner Steven Moffat.
The companion goes on
a different journey from being just an ordinary person
sometimes to being a superhero.
I go to the movies to see
the tenth Doctor, David Tennant,
back on the big screen.
He seems drawn back to the idea of a soulmate.
And I hear exclusively from the new twelfth Doctor,
actor Peter Capaldi.
There's a little bit of me that likes hearing
Clara shout, "Doctor, Doctor!" As we run down the corridor.
Oh, hello.
I'm just trying to get my trusty TARDIS moving again.
It's been well over 30 years since
I began my time as the fifth Doctor,
and they've finally given me a copy of the manual.
Fascinating.
It's all coming back to me.
As Tom Baker's fourth Doctor regenerated,
my time onboard the TARDIS as the fifth Doctor began.
Together with my trusty companions,
it was quite an experience.
My time as the Doctor provided plenty of adventures
as I traveled through space and time,
but like the Time Lords that had gone before me,
I didn't travel alone.
The Doctor's always needed a companion,
or two or three, to assist him in
his time-traveling adventures
and to get him out of the occasional scrape, or two.
Or three.
You can see where I'm going with this, can't you?
No? Okay. It's time for a clip.
Even today,
the Doctor's companion, Clara Oswald,
can be relied upon to get him out of trouble
and to occasionally save his life.
No. Please.
If this works,
get out of here as fast as you can
and spare me a thought now and then.
No. Clara.
In fact, do you know what?
Run.
Run, you clever boy.
And remember me.
No. Clara!
Being a Doctor's companion, often the Doctor's lifesaver,
is a big responsibility, so just what does it take?
I want to find out for myself,
what type of characters are they?
Is there a formula or a blueprint
to create a Doctor Who companion,
and if so, what would it take to create
the ultimate Doctor Who companion?
So, with my trusty TARDIS now up and running,
I think it's time I took one last trip to find out.
The Doctor is a strange and unknowable man.
He's -- you might be fascinated by him
and in a way seduced by him,
but you don't ever quite know him.
You don't even know his name.
So the main character of Doctor Who,
in most cases, the person whose journey
you're watching is actually the companion's journey.
They're not just the Doctor's companion.
In a way, the Doctor's their companion.
It's about Rose Tyler or Amy Pond or Clara Oswald.
It's their story, their journey,
how that begins and how that ends.
It's not that the companion is important to Doctor Who.
You could almost argue the companion is Doctor Who.
She is the person or he is the person
who is asking that question embodied in the title.
Ever since the first Doctor,
there have been companions, and when it came to my Doctor,
I was spoiled for choice.
I had five in total, and they were all
very different to each other.
To help me gain a better idea
of what it was like to travel with
the Doctor back then, I've invited round
Janet Fielding, who played Tegan,
and Sarah Sutton, who played Nyssa
to get an insider's point of view.
The main reason I've asked you here
is I'm set on a mission.
I'm on a quest to discover if it's possible
to design the ultimate companion.
And as in my mind, you two were ultimate companions...
Well said. Good answer.
So far.
I just wondered if you have any ideas about, you know,
what makes an ultimate companion,
what qualities do they have to have?
Well, to me the Doctor perhaps sees
the problem-solving thing in a different way.
'Cause if the assistant or companion, beg your pardon,
wasn't there getting into trouble,
then the Doctor would have just gone off
and done his own thing, solved something in one way,
and maybe the companion makes the Doctor
see things through a different perspective.
Do you agree?
Yes, of course, but isn't it true,
or maybe it wasn't so true, then,
that we see the TARDIS and the Doctor's adventures
through the eyes of the companion?
I think it's truer now, isn't it?
Yeah, I think so.
It's much truer now.
I think the companions now,
much more -- you know, you relate to them much more.
So let's see how the companions'
relationship with the Doctor has changed.
Cue Clara.
Draft.
Fancy a week in ancient Mesopotamia
followed by future Mars?
Will there be cocktails?
On the Moon.
The Moon'll do.
Ha ha!
What they've discovered in the new series,
it seems to me, is just how to make
the companions just more important.
The doctors were more emotionally remote
in the '80s, weren't they?
Yes.
So the whole point was that you weren't --
your characters weren't very emotional.
You were complete outsiders.
Whereas you notice -- especially I notice
with Matt Smith, watching the interaction
between him, Rory, and Amy,
and he does that with a certain air of wistfulness.
2,000 years.
The boy who waited.
Good on you, mate.
Have you got any contributions in terms of
what traits and qualities I should put on my list
for my ultimate companion?
It's that likability, and you have to have
a fallibility, I think you do,
you have to have flaws, you know?
I think the flaws, actually,
I'm beginning to realize the flaws are as important,
really, as the qualities.
To create the drama.
Well, thank you both very much for coming along,
and it's been very useful to talk to you.
It's fair to say that the tenth Doctor
recruited a diverse range of companions,
so who better to ask about what makes
an ultimate companion than the man himself,
actor David Tennant?
No, Jackie, no, no, not you.
Don't touch anything, just...
As Clara Oswald is about to start
a new journey with a new Doctor played by actor
Peter Capaldi, I want to know what she should expect
when a new Doctor begins his time on the TARDIS.
No, no!
Please don't change.
So I've met up with actress Nicola Bryant,
who played my American companion Peri Brown,
to find out how she managed
when I regenerated from the fifth Doctor
into Colin Baker's new sixth Doctor.
You had it particularly difficult,
and it's a problem that Jenna Coleman is
about to come up against, and that is that up to now,
you did two very nice stories
with me as the Doctor, including, actually,
one of the greatest Doctor Who stories ever made,
"The Caves of Androzani," and then at the end of that,
suddenly, whoosh, I turn into Colin Baker,
and you have a completely different Doctor to deal with.
Now, we built up a kind of relationship
over those two stories.
How difficult was it then to move on?
I think in terms of the character,
in terms of Peri, you just, like an actor,
you have to be incredibly flexible.
I think the reason she stayed --
'cause you have to find the reason.
Why am I staying with this new Doctor
who in my case was particularly cantankerous and difficult?
Doctor?
You were expecting someone else?
I...I...I...
Those three "I's" in one breath makes you sound
a rather egotistical young lady.
And I look at Doctor Who now,
and I just wondered how you viewed
the Doctor Who now in the sense that I think
when it came back, from Rose onwards, really,
the companion became so much more of an important part.
I have to say that when I saw Rose,
it was almost like her journey was the journey
that I wanted Peri to go on.
I love you.
Quite right, too.
And I suppose...
It's my last chance to say it.
Rose Tyler --
Okay,
I think we've established on top of everything else,
we doctors give the companions a big problem.
No sooner do we welcome them into the TARDIS,
make them feel really at home, and we suddenly
turn into someone completely different.
They have to be the ultimate in adaptability
and yet know exactly what they want.
Clara is an unusual one because she has to
go through two doctors, in fact.
Several more if you count the 50th.
And Clara being I suppose a girl who likes
everything in its box, quite in control,
quite sort of perfect in a way,
um, has a great time with the Matt Smith Doctor
because he rolls over on his back
and she tickles his tummy and that's fine.
She gets all the adoration she requires
and she puts him back in his police box
when she's bored of him and goes back to a normal life.
Then along comes the Peter Capaldi Doctor,
and things change, rather, but you'll have to
keep watching to find out how.
It's fair to say that the tenth Doctor
recruited a diverse range of companions,
so who better to ask about what makes an ultimate companion
than the man himself, actor David Tennant?
Right, okay, so, David, thank you very much
for spending some time and coming along today.
I wanted to ask you, why do you think the Doctor
needs a companion?
When he periods of traveling alone,
which my Doctor certainly did, he seems drawn back to the idea
of a soulmate after not very much time on his own.
I think perhaps he doesn't like his own company.
Do you find that different companions
complemented the Doctor in different ways?
How did you find playing with different companions
affecting the way you --
Well, I suppose one of the difficult things
in the character that
any kind of heroic character that kind of
can't change too much or the series is broken,
you kind of -- you're always looking
for new ways to explore who that character is,
and one of the best ways of doing that
is by giving them a different opposite number,
and to change the kind of dynamics of
those opposite numbers, to show different aspects
of that continuing character's personality.
But talking about it affecting the dynamics,
we have a clip here of you in the TARDIS,
and I thought, as I say, I had three and that was a lot.
Look at this.
Cue the curtains!
It's like the Saturday morning pictures all over again.
Sarah, hold that. Mickey, you hold that.
'Cause you know why this TARDIS is always
rattling about the place? Rose, that, there.
It was designed to have six pilots,
and I have to do it single-handed.
Martha, keep that level.
But not anymore. Jack, there you go, steady that.
Now we can fly this thing -- n--no, Jackie,
no, no, not you.
Don't touch anything. Just...
Stand back.
All right, then. Off we go.
So there you are dealing with the multidynamics
of an enormous number of companions.
I couldn't even --
almost as many as you had.
Almost as many, yeah,
and in that scene, for example,
I thought, you know, you were playing
multi-comedic facets of those various companions
that you'd picked up along the way,
and it is quite important, isn't it?
I mean, apart from imparting information,
it's also a chance to have a bit of fun.
Yes, I suppose, otherwise it can be a bit dour,
can't it, and I suppose there's always going to be --
because the Doctor's always going to be older,
wiser, alien, and the companion tends to be younger, human,
there's a disparity there which lends itself
to comedy, I guess, as well.
Absolutely. So what do you think that our companion --
are there things that you could actually
lay down and say a companion needs to have these qualities?
You need to have a certain courage.
A wanderlust, um, and I suppose
a sense of themself, a sense --
you need someone who can stand up to him.
So confidence.
Needs a lot of confidence.
Excellent, it's been really helpful.
Good, I'm delighted to be of service.
Thank you.
You start off explaining the character
to the actor or actress,
and then in the course of a successful audition,
they start explaining the character to you.
No?
The Doctor?
Doctor Who? No, just the Doctor.
One of the most obvious things I can see
when it comes to being a companion
is that they have to be courageous
in the face of danger, and for the companions,
when the Doctor's around, danger is never far away.
So to find out what it takes to step up and stare danger
right between the eyes, I'm meeting up with someone who,
well, let's just say they learnt to be brave.
Ah.
I think he's here.
Hello, sir.
How are you? I'm good. How are you doing?
Nice to see you. Yeah, you too.
The truth is, Noel,
I've always wanted to meet someone
in the middle of Chelsea bridge.
Well, we're meeting.
No, the thing is, I've been set this quest
to discover a design for the ultimate companion,
and we've asked various people
for suggestions about what it takes to make
an ultimate companion.
What's interesting about your case
is that you didn't start off as one,
it seemed to me, anyway, correct me if I'm wrong.
You seemed to start off as a slightly weedly,
almost dumped boyfriend.
Yeah, very much so, very much so.
I think that was sort of the idea.
Originally the character
was only supposed to be in for three episodes,
you know, because it was such a weedly,
you know, scaredy-cat character.
They knew that the Doctor wouldn't really like him
and they knew the fans wouldn't really take to him,
and so he was supposed to be that sort of take-for-granted --
take his girlfriend for granted type of boyfriend.
A fat lot good you were.
Nesting Consciousness?
Easy. Right, then.
I'll be off.
Unless, I don't know.
You could come with me.
Don't.
He's an alien, he's a thing!
He's not invited.
You did then become gradually more heroic
as the series went on.
Like real life, obviously.
There's an argument, of course,
that the companion, since the series came back,
that the companions are as important
if not sometimes more important than the Doctor.
I think they ground it.
I think they ground the show.
They bring the real life element.
You know, Rose with Mickey and Jackie
and then, you know, Martha and her family and Donna and,
the companions bring that,
and I think it makes it relatable
to the guy at home who's like,
"well, I can't quite be the Doctor,
but I could be the companion," you know?
So it's a combination, what you need,
and I guess you have it, is a combination
of uniqueness and yet everyman.
The everyman, yeah. Which is a fantastic quality to have.
Well, thanks very much.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm beginning to get a good idea
of the elements that help make a companion.
So far, I've realized that the companions
have to be keen on adventure,
they have to be adaptable, heroic, even.
But what about the actors who play the companion?
They have to take this part and make it their own,
face all the challenges thrown at them by the Doctor,
and yet make their companion unique.
Just as actor Jenna Coleman has.
Hello.
Clara Oswald.
Yeah? Clara Oswin Oswald?
Just Clara Oswald. What was that middle one?
Do you remember me?
No.
Should I? Who are you?
The Doctor.
No?
The Doctor?
Doctor Who?
No, just the Doctor.
Actually, sorry, could you just ask me that again?
Could I what? Just ask me that question again?
Doctor Who.
Okay, just once more.
Doctor Who?
Oh, yeah.
Ooh.
Do you know,
I never realized how much I enjoy
hearing that said out loud. Thank you.
Okay. Hey, no! Clara!
The main thing about auditions is that when they work,
you start off explaining the character
to the actor or actress, and then,
in the course of a successful audition,
they start explaining the character to you
and the way they act, and it just happens sometimes,
it just catches fire.
It's the easiest thing in the world
to spot a successful audition, to spot a star.
It really is.
The stardom is not difficult to see.
With Jenna as Clara,
I remember very vividly, there was just a moment
when she and Matt were reacting to something together,
and I thought, "oh, my goodness,
she absolutely gets it.
She gets what kind of storytelling this is."
And she's got a wonderful face and wonderful eyes,
she was so funny,
she was fast.
She was just perfect.
But, you know, there was no expertise
on my part involved in that.
Maybe some expertise on the part of Andy Pryor,
the casting director, but not on my part.
Anyone could have spotted that that was the right girl,
'cause she was brilliant, and brilliance is very,
very easy to detect.
Since the return of the show in 2004,
each companion has had their own theme music.
I want to find out why.
Hello?
Hello!
I'm meeting Doctor Who's
casting director, Andy Pryor.
So with regards to
the companion, presumably they give you
a certain amount of parameters to make your job
a little bit easier, so you can go
and look for the characteristics that they require.
Well, as with all casting, really,
it is driven by the writing.
You know, the key and crucial thing
is the writing and the interpreting that
in the casting the best way you can.
Quite often with the companion,
the showrunner will have had an idea about
what kind of character he wants them to be.
But really, until you get the scenes on the page,
the dialogue on the page, and you can hear
the characters speaking, then it's quite difficult
to make a full judgement on it.
Now, presumably there was some kind of balance
that you looked for when the Doctor was Matt
and the companion was Jenna and now you have
a different Doctor.
I suppose what I'm saying is that you need an actor
who can sort of play the part across the board,
you know, very adaptable.
Yes, I mean, one of the difficulties is that,
you know, you can't predict chemistry
until you put two actors together,
and then when you change Doctor, you don't quite know
what's going to happen, I think the companion
has the great benefit of already having been established
in that case, and Jenna had established Clara brilliantly
by the time we'd cast Peter,
and I think that's probably helpful for another actor,
in this case Peter, coming in,
to have somebody there who sort of knows the ropes,
so it ends up becoming quite a sort of mutual support thing
between the two actors.
So, meeting Andy has been very useful.
It's clear that our ultimate companion
has to be a good actor but also have a strong personality.
You see, the companion is how we view the TARDIS.
It's who we share all our time-traveling experiences with.
We really do have to like them.
Really has to be the right person for the job.
Since the return of the show in 2004,
each companion has had their own theme music,
from Rose to Martha, from Donna to Amy,
and now, of course, Clara.
Each has had a piece of music dedicated to them.
I want to find out why.
So I've come to a recording studio
in London to speak to the man who penned all of those themes,
Doctor Who's composer, Murray Gold.
So, Murray, thanks very much for helping us out with this.
Tell us about Clara's theme.
Well, that's a good case in point,
because Clara came in at a time when the stories had become
very melodramatic, and you could see
that she was sort of off-the-cuff and flighty
and smart and didn't have a lot of baggage, you know.
She had a freshness about her.
And so I wanted to carry that through in the music.
Hello?
Hello!
So, Murray, with my design for the ultimate Doctor's companion,
what would you -- what themes would you
be reflecting in the music for the ultimate companion?
Ultimate companion?
She's just curious and tells the Doctor the truth
and also hides the truth, and there's a bunch of opposites
all contained in one person,
and I don't know, it's a difficult task,
that, ultimate --
Okay, I'll let you know. Okay. Please do.
One of the main responsibilities about playing
the Doctor's companion is what it means to the fans.
How will you be received, how will it change your life?
Well, to find out, I'm off to Houston, Texas,
and the good old U.S. of "A" to talk to John Barrowman,
who played Captain Jack Harkness,
see what he thinks.
Only problem is, what did I do with the TARDIS?
Ah!
Ah. Seems like I still have the hang of flying this thing.
Yes, this definitely looks like Texas.
Now all I have to do is track down John
among all these fans.
There's quite a lot of them.
John? It's been 20 minutes.
It's probably going to be an hour,
so just hang tight.
To hell with this.
I'm telling you,
they learn to fly a TARDIS,
they think they can rule the world!
Captain Jack Harkness, played by actor John Barrowman,
proved to be one of Doctor Who's
most popular characters, and for John,
playing the part of the Doctor's companion
literally changed his life.
I think he came with us.
How do you mean, from earth?
Must have been clinging to the outside of the TARDIS.
All the way through the vortex?
Wow, that's very him.
What, do you know him?
Friend of mine.
Used to travel with me back in the old days.
But he's...
I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat.
There's nothing.
He's dead.
Aaah!
Oh, so much for me!
It's all right, breathe deep, I've got you.
Captain Jack Harkness.
And who are you?
Martha Jones.
Nice to meet you, Martha Jones.
Oh, don't start!
I was only saying hello.
I don't mind.
Got it? Yeah.
Thank you, awesome. Thank you very much.
John is appearing at a science fiction convention
where fans are gathering to meet
their favorite superheroes and companions.
Now I've found him,
I just need to get his attention.
John! Any chance you could make this --
just hold on a minute, okay?
Just about five minutes.
Five minutes? Okay.
There you go, is that okay?
John, it's been 20 minutes.
It's probably going to be an hour,
so just hang tight.
To hell with this.
I'm telling you,
they learn to fly a TARDIS,
they think they can rule the world!
So, John, obviously there's an enormous number
of fans here today, and an enormous number of them
are waiting to see you
as Captain Jack.
Now, if we were searching, say, for the ultimate companion,
how important is it to find someone who is prepared
to be a companion for the rest of their lives?
It's really important, because the identity that
the fans have through the companion
is their connection to the Doctor,
and the fans, I think, then relate to something
that is within the companion themselves,
so if the companion, whether it is someone
like Sarah Jane or it's a Captain Jack
or a Rose Tyler or a Martha Jones,
all of those --
all of those characters then connect with
somebody in the audience, but you have to realize
once you are in this -- I call it
the Who family,
you're there for the rest of your life.
It is the longest job.
It is the longest job in show business.
You never leave. But it's the most gratifying,
because once you're in there and the kind of adulation
that you get from the fans, because, you know,
I see young -- I have a little,
like, seven year old boy dressed up as Captain Jack
and his best friend dressed up as, you know,
David as the Doctor, and for me, that's like,
they're just seeing it for the first time,
so it's generations, generations that are
going to continue to watch it, so if you are a companion,
you must take this onboard that you're
going to be there for the rest of your life.
The way it was played and the way it was written
in the script, I guess the way you played it,
was completely open, you know, heart on sleeve,
and that's really the one essential quality
I think a companion has to have if the audience
is to relate to them.
Well, yeah, because they have to --
like I said, they're the connection to the Doctor,
but for a companion,
if you're going to be a good one,
you've got to allow the Doctor to shine and be the Doctor,
but you've also got to make your mark.
So if you had to distill just one of
the qualities of a companion
that you enjoy playing the most, what would it be?
This is going to -- it might be a weird answer.
Yes, it was being the hero. It was being...
The -- you know, the flirtatious, fun one,
but it was also being
the companion.
And that may be not a description of what you --
how you can play it, but part of the joy
was being part of his team,
and that to me --
so if that answers the question,
that's what it was.
Excellent. Finally, I don't suppose it's possible,
is it, to get you to sign this?
Well, I did make you wait for an hour.
I did, and -- I don't have a pen on me.
Anybody have a pen?
I've got a fan here.
Don't worry, I'll... I'll come back tomorrow.
All right. Thanks, Peter.
God love you.
It's always interesting when the doctors like Captain Jack.
So, it's back into the TARDIS and back to the U.K.,
where I've got one last stop on my journey.
Let's see if I can
find the man behind the current series
of Doctor Who, Steven Moffat,
to see what he thinks makes the ultimate companion.
Now, when you were young
and you used to watch the program,
did you want to be the Doctor
or did you want to be a companion?
I can only ever remember myself wanting to be a companion.
Oh, you always want to be a companion,
because the Doctor is unknowable,
and you want that TARDIS to materialize
at the end of your road and you to be invited in
and go on an adventure and let the Doctor take on
the heavy work and explain stuff while you get to be
sort of excited and interested.
It never happened.
But I think the show is the closest I've got.
But would you have accepted that invitation?
This is why -- I don't think I'd ever be
brave enough to accept it.
We asked people, and this is what we came up with
in terms of a list of the qualities, the attributes,
that maybe the ultimate companion needs.
A sense of adventure, obviously, I guess,
adaptable, suddenly you're on Earth,
next minute you're in some other universe.
Got to appeal to the fans.
Right, yes, yes.
And be unique.
Unique but identical in all the other respects.
You see, the thing that I thought was,
the companion, the same time as maybe being unique,
they are everyman and everywoman.
I mean, they ask the Doctor the questions
that we sitting at home watching the program --
would want to ask, yeah.
They are. I mean, I think sometimes it's reductive
to say that they're just there to give the viewers' viewpoint.
They're also in a way kind of the main character.
They -- sorry. It's their journey
that you're following, you know, how they're changed
by the experience of the Doctor.
The Doctor, you know, for all the changes he's faced,
he's sort of the same as he ever was,
but the companion goes on a different journey
from being just an ordinary person
sometimes to being a superhero, so it's often their story.
So now we have, of course, a new Doctor coming up,
and a companion who has been
passed from Matt Smith to Peter Capaldi.
How is this going to affect her character?
I think it's rather exciting, actually.
He's very, very different.
We just got to the point with Matt's Doctor and Jenna
that they feel really comfortable, it's a proper unit,
and you sort of feel she's completely in control of it,
which is what Clara likes.
She likes to be completely in control of her puppy Doctor
and she can go off every Wednesday,
have an adventure with him, put him back in the blue box,
go back to work.
She likes that, it's cool, and she tells him what to do.
Along comes the Capaldi Doctor, and suddenly he's sort of
rebooted to a very difficult to control,
slightly unreasonable man,
and she starts to have to be the human interface
between the old Scottish monster
and the humanity he's trying to save.
So a nice challenge for her.
It's been brilliant, yeah. She's so funny in this.
I'm looking forward to it.
Would you like to meet her?
I wouldn't mind.
I'll have a word.
Your relationship with Clara has changed
from Matt Smith's relationship with Clara.
Is it essentially different?
It's clearly, you know, although the Doctor
is the same age, he appears much older,
so it just changed the dynamic in a very interesting way.
So, with Steven's encouragement,
I'm about to find out from Jenna Coleman
what's in store for Clara in the next series
as a new Doctor enters our lives.
I've been sent on this mission to try and discover
what it takes to be
an ultimate companion, and so before we go on to
actually how you've made Clara a very special companion,
what do you think the essential
qualities are for a Doctor Who companion?
I think ultimately, and kind of going back
to all the companions that I've seen,
is I think one word that I'd use is "spirit,"
and, yeah, an adventurous streak,
always to have that kind of
bold, human spirit throughout all of the adventures,
and I think that's the thing in common.
And would you say that's what
you've latched onto most?
'Cause you seem to have a tremendous amount of fun.
Obviously I'm talking now about the last season,
but you seem to have a tremendous amount of fun
in your sort of repartee with the Doctor.
Yeah, it is, isn't it?
I mean, even me as Jenna just coming in to work every day
and getting to go to all those places
and travel it in that way and kind of just adventure,
just to have adventure and just live a life
traveling with Doctor Who as your best friend.
Did you really know what you were getting yourself into
when you became a companion?
Had you watched the series before?
No, I hadn't. Really?
It was off-- I was -- I think I was 18,
19 when the series came back on,
so it was never in my childhood at all,
but it's always something that's kind of in your psyche,
you're always aware of it, you see it --
it's all over, it's -- I think it's such a part
of British culture.
Was there a sort of BBC handbook
for companions they gave you that you could go,
"I see, that's how I'm meant to be"?
No. I do remember actually going for --
I remember going into the BBC for
my first audition with Matt, and I just remember
being sat in a canteen and I was eating a salad
and I just looked up and there's literally like
a cardboard cutout of Matt
just like stood like right next to me,
so, you know, you've kind of got an awareness
of, okay, this show is quite unique.
Yes, no, absolutely.
And one of the things that's come up
when we've been talking to people about
the ultimate companion is adaptability.
Now, they gave you possibly the hardest job
that they've given any companion, I think,
because there you were, going along very, very nicely,
with the eleventh Doctor, and then they swapped
doctors on you, and not only that,
they swapped from the youngest Doctor
there has ever been to I believe shall we say most mature Doctor.
How has that affected the way that you play Clara?
I think what has kind of happened is
everything feels like it's kind of been inverted,
and I think with what's -- with going from Matt's Doctor,
to this young, vibrant guy who has kind of
got this old spirit, it feels kind of inverted now,
so we have Peter's Doctor, but he's got this
kind of young, boyish spirit, and in a way,
the relationship has totally -- it's just been totally inverted,
the dynamics have shifted so much.
That must be interesting as an actress
to play that as well, isn't it?
Yeah, and to go along with that kind of --
of what it does to her, and I think in a way,
it kind of -- it ruffles her -- the new Doctor
ruffles her feathers in a way that the other Doctor didn't,
and I think she finds him a lot harder to control, almost,
and to kind of keep on a leash because he's just this --
You're the senior partner now, of course, aren't you,
so maybe you have to sort of show him how --
help him find his feet in the TARDIS.
I suppose so, but it's never really felt like that at all.
I mean,
what advice can you give to Peter Capaldi?
He's just, you know, he's a genius.
I'm particularly excited about it,
because I grew up, you see, with William Hartnell
and Patrick Troughton, so older doctors,
and while I've immensely enjoyed the younger doctors,
and indeed I've always said I started a trend
for younger doctors, but there you go,
I'm quite -- I'm very excited that now
we're having -- almost sort of going back to basics.
He is the Doctor, he -- he has --
even his physicality -- you'll see so many things,
like one weird thing that I noticed straight away
was his hands, like, he's just got this
doctorish quality to the way he walks and runs,
and...
He is the Doctor. He is, he is, yeah.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
There's just one person left to ask about companions,
the new twelfth Doctor himself, Peter Capaldi.
Now, I've been set on this mission to see if
I can come up with a design for the ultimate
Doctor Who companion, and I just wondered if --
how you felt that your relationship with Clara
has changed from Matt Smith's relationship with Clara,
has -- is it essentially different?
I think it's changed, yeah, very significantly,
because clearly, you know, although the Doctor
is the same age, he appears much older.
So it just changed the dynamic in a very interesting way.
I think he's crazy about her,
but in a totally sort of innocent way.
What's come up in my conversations with
various people, they've said, you know,
companions, apart from being certainly courageous,
being strong-willed, but they also have to
adapt very well, and it sounds like
you are pushing the limits of that, adapting,
for a companion.
Yeah, I think the show's changed quite a lot,
and I think the stories are largely told now
through the eyes of the companion,
which wasn't always the case before,
but they also serve the function in doing it.
A key Doctor Who thing which I've always
loved about Doctor Who was
the ability to balance the sort of banal and domestic
with the epic and exotic and spectacular space monster
kind of orientated kinds of worlds
with the pedestrian precinct with the overflowing litter bin,
so with Clara, she has a very --
we see a lot of her life, which, you know,
she has -- she's a teacher, I call her at school.
And it's quite a -- you know, it's quite a tough job.
It's a good job and she does it very well,
but we saw her colleagues, we see her students.
You've been running.
Are you okay?
There was a call for you at the office.
From your Doctor.
I think it's one of the great achievements
of the series since it came back
is the companion is a much more exciting part
for someone to play, I think, and you complement
and makes it, you know, for a great relationship.
I think it's very important.
I think it's -- the Doctor without a companion is --
you know, you maybe get away with one episode
or something like that just as a novelty,
but he needs somebody to ground him
for the audience to see the wonders,
you know, through the companion's eyes.
And there is a little bit of me that likes
hearing Clara shout, "Doctor, Doctor!"
As we run down a corridor.
But I love that about it.
Well, thank you very much indeed for your help.
I'm going to add all those things to my list.
Thanks again. It's been a great pleasure.
It's been a great pleasure to meet you, Doctor.
Thank you, Doctor. Good to meet you at last.
Well, here I am at the end of my journey,
and I think it's safe to say that I now know
more about a companion's life than I did before.
Essentially, they're adventurous,
heroic individuals who adapt to their doctors
and manage to keep them in check.
More importantly, they're our way into the TARDIS,
our way of traveling with the Doctor.
Their journeys are constantly changing,
and as the twelfth Doctor enters Clara's life,
her journey is about to change again,
and our journey with the both of them
is just about to begin.
Is there an ultimate companion?
Well, I don't know, but one thing is certain --
being a companion is the ultimate position
onboard the TARDIS.
== sync, corrected by elderman == @elder_man