EXCLUSIVE: Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi has revealed who he wants to become the next Doctor as he opens up whether the show is set to come back
Former Time Lord Peter Capaldi says the next Doctor Who should be a complete unknown.
The sci-fi series faces an uncertain future after the Christmas special was axed for the second year in a row, while screenwriter and TV producer Russell T Davies announced his departure in June.
Capaldi, 68, who played the Doctor from 2013 to 2017 said there’s no doubt that that the show will return but bosses need to rethink their plan for the next leading star.
Peter revealed he’d love to see an unknown actor step into the role: “I think it would be lovely. I’d like to see someone who nobody knew, rather than us all plucking names on people that we’ve seen. I’d like to see something that’s a totally unknown quantity.”
The role is vacant after Ncuti Gatwa, the fifteenth doctor, who appeared in the series from 2023 until 2025, quit. Viewers saw Gatwa’s Doctor regenerate into Billie Piper, who previously played companion Rose Tyler to Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant’s incarnations of The Doctor in the last episode.
However, since the Christmas special has been cancelled it’s unclear if Billie is set to play the next doctor, or if this was a red herring for fans, so the future of the series is very much up in the air.
When asked if there were any names he could think of who would impress in the role, he admitted there were “lots of names” but it would be “inappropriate” for him to throw any into the mix publicly.
With the announcement that the Christmas special would not go ahead, Russell T Davies also announced his decision to leave Doctor Who once again. “And so GOODBYE from me to Doctor Who but HELLO to a big new future for the show, as the BBC announces it’s putting the show out to tender,” he said at the time.
This led to speculation that Doctor Who would be cancelled entirely, this rumour Peter was happy to shut down.
“Oh, I think it’s coming back.. It is happening, and I look forward to seeing it,” he confirmed to the Mirror.
Revealing the perks of being the Doctor, Peter said: “I mean, it’s just an amazing job. You get to go into work every day and blow up dogs or flying tires, and also when kids meet you when you’re in the heat of it and you’re in the middle of being Doctor Who, they’re meeting Doctor Who, and that is an extraordinary privilege to be on the other side of that. Their eyes widen and they look at you as if as if you’re Santa Claus or something, and it’s incredible.”
In recent years the actor, who broke out in BBC political comedy The Thick of It, has ventured into other areas including music and even performed at Glastonbury Festival in 2025,
He joined fellow Scots Franz Ferdinand on stage to sing their smash hit Take Me Out. He revealed this was the first time he’d ever attended Glastonbury and still feels like a ‘dream’.
“Every time I think about it, it’s like a dream really. I’m not really sure this really happened to have it in my head. It’s just my current dream. Cold breeze on the stage. Everything was harsh and quite a setting. I mean I was really quite frightened because I never. I’ve been to Glastonbury before.”
He described his music as a passion project: ” Well, it’s really something that I’m doing for fun. It’s not about trying to get into the charts or change my career.”
For that reason he can stay detached, without concerns about chart performance: “It doesn’t matter what happens to my music. You know what? If people like it, that’s fine. If they don’t like it, that’s fine. Also, because I’m not doing it in order to claw my way into using industry, I’m doing it because I love this.”
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