DOCTOR WHO 50th ANNIVERSARY Its Like A Conversation With Your Own Conscience

David Tennant on what it's like having two versions of the same man in Doctor Who 50th anniversary special

With the usual one in, one out policy on board the TARDIS, David Tennant and Matt Smith’s Doctors were mere seconds away from sharing screentime, yet never actually appeared together. That all changes in 50 ^th anniversary special “The Day Of The Doctor”, of course, and SFX asked Tennant to divulge a bit about the dynamic between the two most recent incarnations of the Time Lord.

‘‘They’re slightly competitive, but I think they quite enjoy being in each other’s presence as well,” he says. “It’s like a conversation with your own conscience I suppose, you sort of swing from being pleased with yourself to being infuriated by your own inadequacies, and I guess that’s kind of writ large, isn’t it, if you meet yourself?

“What’s been quite interesting is to find the moments where our two Doctors intersect and then the moments when they do things rather differently,” he continues. “ I think the fun is in the gap between the two. We’ve been finding moments when they quite enjoy recognising the same things or having the same thought.”

“They sort of get on and then they don’t get on and then they get on,” adds Smith. “It’s like two brothers that are evenly matched, fencing a lot.”

Story by Chloe Haynes

"The Day Of The Doctor" airs at 7.50 pm on Saturday 23 November on BBC One, and will screen in selected cinemas.

Read more about Doctor Who's 50 ^th anniversary in the new issue of SFX, on sale Wednesday 13 November.