Steven Moffat Talks Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi

The latest SFX contains an exclusive interview with Doctor Who supremo Steven Moffat, sharing insights into Christmas special "The Time Of The Doctor", which sees Matt Smith surrender the TARDIS to Peter Capaldi.

"What does that mean to the Doctor? His apparent ages range from 70s to 20s, in no particular order. It’s clearly no reflection of how he feels, because he’s well over 1000 now. So no, he’s just the Doctor. I think it inflects what the actor does a bit. Matt was always keen to say that it’s only his skin that’s young. He’s got a young body but he’s not young. With Peter, there’s a quality that’s almost the inverse of Matt. He’s an older man in his 50s, but there’s something very, very youthful and schoolboy-ish about him when you meet him, very enthused and twinkling. The other night he said to me 'Only 23 sleeps til I’m regenerating!'

"Peter’s quite vital. For a man in his mid 50s he’s very wiry. I think the pace and the energy will come differently. You wouldn’t want it to come the same way, would you? As far as the Doctor knows, he’s just slightly older than he was the last time. That’s all he is – he just looks like that, he looks different. The way I’m writing it at the moment I don’t think there’ll be any lack of vigour or attack in the new one. I mean, look at Jon Pertwee – quite a physical, lively Doctor, and he was older..."

Read the whole interview in SFX 244, on sale Wednesday 11 December.

Nick Setchfield is the Editor-at-Large for SFX Magazine, writing features, reviews, interviews, and more for the monthly issues. However, he is also a freelance journalist and author with Titan Books. His original novels are called The War in the Dark, and The Spider Dance. He's also written a book on James Bond called Mission Statements.