Interview: Matt Smith Says "Doctor Who" Fans Are What Make the Show Brilliant

Matt Smith

British actor Matt Smith is hardly the first person to be plucked from relative obscurity and handed a role guaranteed to make him famous around the world. But at least when Daniel Radcliffe was cast as Harry Potter he wasn’t following in the shoes of other actors who had already played the part, often to wild acclaim.

But that was exactly the situation Smith faced in 2009 when he was cast as the 11th incarnation of the Doctor on the iconic British show Doctor Who. Adding to the pressure faced by Smith was the fact that he had to follow in the footsteps of the immensely popular David Tennant, who played the Doctor from 2005 to 2010, and who helped the franchise reach an unprecedented level of success, not just in the UK, but around the world.

AfterElton.com caught up with Smith at the Television Critics Association Summer Tour in Los Angeles where Smith, looking every bit the star (it was the sunglasses that did it), discussed the sudden fame that came with playing the Doctor, the risks of being typecast, and how the explicit gay love scenes he had in Christopher and His Kind showed him that he didn't have a "... gay bone in my body."

AfterElton: Do you feel vindicated by how successful you’ve been as the Doctor? A lot of folks thought you were too young to for the part or not high profile enough to take on the role.
Matt Smith: I mean I don’t see it as vindication really, it’s about trying to do your best to play your part and that’s all I ever try to do. I try to do my best and I hope that people enjoy it but actually I think everyone feels the support from the fans of the Doctor because that’s what makes this show brilliant. It’s the fans; they’ve kept it going all this time. So you just have to take it on the chin really and get on with it and hope that you can keep challenging people and pushing the part forward.

AE: What’s been the most surprising part about actually playing the Doctor?
MS: There are so many really. Like going to Comic-Con was such a remarkable experience. Thousands of people genuinely supporting you, things like that are just incredible. There are so many things that surprise me on the show from different sets to the actors you might get in to the way the story is told to the response from fans and the transition that you go into with your own life having a show with such a popular precedence.

Smith as the Doctor

AE: What’s the most surprising thing about this level of fame? Were you prepared for this?
MS: I don’t think anything could prepare you for whatever fame is. Fame is a very hard word to define cause it means different things to different people for different reasons so I never really think of it as fame, I think of it as part of the job. It’s interesting.

AE: It seems like playing the Doctor for an actor is like a dream role. Once you've successfully played the part, you have worldwide fame that opens all sorts of doors for you. Plus, it let’s you put your own stamp on a very iconic character but you also aren’t going to be typecast as being “just the Doctor” because so many actors have been the Doctor by now.
MS: I’ve never considered it a problem to be typecast because A, I don’t think good actors get typecast and B, in ten years time I’ll be playing very different roles. With that said, a part like this doesn’t come along very often. A part with this many levels and there is so much to play in a part like this. It’s not going to be forever and you have to enjoy it while it’s here and take it seriously but not too seriously and smile because it could be worse.

AE: How long would you like to play the Doctor?
MS: It depends on how long Steven [Moffatt, Doctor Who's head writer] writes for the show because I’ll only do it with Steven. And it depends on where the story is taken, I think. Year by year I’m excited on what comes up in the show.

AE: Were you a fan of the show before you became the Doctor?
MS: I was aware of it but I wouldn’t have called myself a fan. I became a fan subsequently. The show scooped me up as it does so well.

AE: Changing topics, what attracted you to Christopher and His Kind?
MS: Well, the script. I loved the script so much and I thought it was a fantastic story. It’s a wonderful play about being gay as well. It’s brilliant. I just thought it was fascinating to play this man, the way Christopher spoke was so extreme and there was something quite extreme about his personality really. Charming man and his prose were just wonderful.

AE: So much has changed for the gay community in the past eighty years, both in how we view ourselves and how the world views us. How did you get into the mindset of the way Isherwood might have thought of himself so long ago?
MS: As a gay man?

AE: Yes, it seems almost alien even to me to think about what it must have been like for someone like Isherwood in the 30s. What research did you do and how did you approach that part?
MS: I spent a lot of time with my gay friends and talked about the intimacy of being homosexual because so much of that film was about lust. You know, gay or straight or purple or blue or whatever. I mean it’s also about love and love being denied.

I have a lot of gay friends and I’m very proud and pleased to have come that far because to be in Britain in the 1930s as a gay man and then to go to Berlin, can you imagine the freedom and the wonder of, God I can actually live as I am. That part of the story I just love. I thought about the denial of being able to express one’s sexuality because that’s what the film is about and it’s about accessing the lust and the love and the passion in the man.

Smith in Christopher and His Kind

AE: The film got wonderful reviews but one reviewer from the Financial Times said he was discomfited by the gay sex in the movie. As an actor, what’s your response to someone who has that kind of reaction to a movie?
MS: Was he gay? The writer?

AE: No. And he admitted it probably had something to do with his age and upbringing.
MS: It’s a shame. Would he feel uncomfortable if it was straight sex?

AE: I assume not.
MS: So that’s more of a question for him not me.

AE: But how do you feel as an artist, when someone reviews something…
MS: It’s part of the story. It wasn’t gratuitous. It was part of the tale. And it’s an important part of the story. His lust, his sexual passion, his sexual personality was interesting to me. This very polite man on the outside and then in the bedroom he was a tiger, at least that’s what I thought. I tried to communicate that in that scene, the scene where they are having sex. Christopher is giving it a good go.

AE: Even though it’s 2011, in addition some reviewers there are some writers or actors that would have a problem with the scenes you had in Christopher. Did that ever make you pause?
MS: It’s just part of my job and I just dived in really. They give you this little pouch to put on and all that sort of stuff and you just really have a go at it. It’s just make believe. It's not the first time I had to kiss a man and hey it could be worse. Alexander and Doug are pretty handsome guys. It could've been worse. It's just part of the job.

It affirmed in my mind that there is not one gay bone in my body. I finally understand the true gripes of my girlfriend when she asks me to shave. I learned something about myself, I guess. To the age I’ve grown up in being homosexual is, I don't know, like being straight, it’s what I’ve always been around. It’s nice now when I see younger people at schools and stuff who are more openly gay I think that’s good and that should be encouraged because some of my friends couldn’t come out until their thirties. I can’t imagine what that conversation is like as a gay man, how difficult it must be…

AE: Yes, trust me.
MS: It’s awful right? I mean it must make you lose sleep.

AE: Last question. What would a post Doctor career look like for you?
MS: I hope it’s glittering with Emmys and Oscars. [laughs] I don’t know. Try and do quality work, do a couple of plays maybe, develop a film career of sorts if that’s possible and maybe get into directing one day but who knows.