Doctor Who exclusive: "You won't miss a heartbeat"

We've seen Matt Smith admiring his new fingers, wondering if he's a girl, and screaming "Geronimo!" as the TARDIS disintegrates around him. But how does he get from navigating the circuits of time to a position where he can meet new companion Amy Pond? “You won’t miss a heartbeat, I can tell you that much," teases new Doctor Who supremo Steven Moffat. "When the series begins, it just carries straight on from the end of ‘The End Of Time’.”

Moffat adds that while Smith's physical appearance is rather different to David Tennant's, he's still playing the same Doctor. “I think it’s vital that people understand the Doctor’s the same man,” he explains. “Obviously if you put on a new suit or pair of shoes you feel different, so as the Doctor develops he does seem quite different, but the essential core of absolute Doctorness is there all the time. You write the Doctor as honestly and clearly as you can, then you give it to a very different actor, and of course it comes out differently – a different voice, a different physicality – but that’s about letting Matt inhabit the part more than it’s about writing a different man. From the Doctor’s point of view, all that’s happened is his body’s rearranged itself a bit.”

You can read more of our exclusive interview with Steven Moffat in the brand new SFX 193, on sale today.

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