David Tennant bio

David Tennant, real name David John McDonald, was born on April 18, 1971 in Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland. His father is Alexander McDonald, a retired minister and former Moderator of the Church of Scotland, and his mother, who is now dead, was Essdale Helen, and he lived with a brother and sister. At the age of three, Tennant already knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. Having watched and become a fan of Doctor Who and seeing Tom Baker play The Doctor, and then becoming a big fan of Peter Davison's Doctor decided from then on that he would like to be an actor so that one day he too could play The Doctor. Although a dream like that was common throughout Scottish children in the 1970s, Tennant has said that it was one thing he was absurdly single-minded in pursuing. His parents supported his decision and at the age of 16 David made his first onscreen appearance and first acting job in a 1988 episode of a British children's anthology show called Dramarama. Before becoming an actor he attended the Paisley Grammar school where he wrote about how much he wanted to play The Doctor. In the weekends, David attended a youth theatre group run by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, or RCS, which at the time was known as the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, or RSAMD. When he auditioned for and won a place in RSAMD at the age of 16, he was the youngest person to do so, and at 17 started as a full student. When he joined Equity, an actors' union, after graduating David had to adopt his stage last name to Tennant due to the union already having a David McDonald. He chose the last name Tennant after one of his favorite bands'- the Pet Shop Boys- lead singer, Neil Tennant. When he joined the American Screen Actors' Guild Tennant had to legally make it his last name due to strict guild rules. By the mid-to-late '90s, Tennant would get his brake when he moved to London by starring in several television shows, movies, and plays before he would be cast as The Doctor in 2005. For television David got noticed for his role in the 1994 BBC Scottish serial drama Takin' Over the Asylum and then starring in He Knew He Was Right and Casanova. In theatre, he took comedic roles in the Royal Shakespeare Company's The Rivals and As You Like It, then doing tragedy in Romeo and Juliet. With movies, Tennant starred in the fourth Harry Potter film in the small role of Barty Crouch, Jr., as well as 1996s Jude with his Doctor predecessor Christopher Eccleston and other films. David also lent his voice to various Doctor Who Big Finish audio plays and the animated webcast Scream of the Shalka before he was cast as the Tenth Doctor in 2005 in the revival show. By then, Tennant not only achieved his dream but also became one of the most well loved and popular actors in and out of the United Kingdom. Like any good actor, Tennant has his own trademarks that makes him unique from other actors, among these are his big sideburns, his very thin frame, and constantly raising his eyebrows so much that you can tell what kind of emotions his having by just looking at them.
In his time on Doctor Who from 2005 to 2010 and then again in 2013, David Tennant became one of the most loved actors to ever play the time traveling alien and with his Doctor being considered one of the bests. Tennant first debuted as The Doctor at the end of the first season finale of the revival on June 9 of 2005 after Eccleston's Doctor regenerated into Tennant's. After that he starred in a Children in Need mini special that then led to his first full episode. His first full episode was in the Christmas special that took place in between the first season finale and the second season premiere where Tennant showed what kind of man his Doctor would be. The second season of the revival, and Tennant's first, had The Doctor traveling outside Earth for the first time since the revival debuted. At one point, Tennant got to work with one of the most famous actors from the original series, Elizabeth Sladen reprising her role of Sarah Jane Smith, whom he was a big fan of when watching the show as a kid, and eventually gaining a spinoff show. Tennant went on to date actress Sophia Myles after she had made an appearance on the show. In his spare time from playing The Doctor he would still act and work on other projects such as a dramatization for television about a well known trial from 1960, signing on to a production of Hamlet with Patrick Stewart, guest-starring on Top Gear, and being the first lead of Doctor Who to appear at Comic-Con in 2009. In between Tennant's second, and the revival's third, season finale and the following Christmas special, he starred in a mini episode that guest starred Peter Davison as his Doctor. In the following season, David got to work with Davison's daughter, Georgia Moffett, in one episode where she played a clone of The Doctor. During shooting they began to date and eventually marrying her and having two children with her, thus becoming one of his favorite Doctor's son-in-law. The 2008 season, which was the fourth for the show and the third for Tennant, was the last one to be shown before 2010 as instead of a regular season in 2009, the show released five specials between the 2008 Christmas special and the 2010 New Years Day special that saw the last regular appearance of Tennant as The Doctor due to the change in crew, such as head writer Russell T. Davies who revived the show. Seeing it as a logical thing to do, David decided that he too should end his time on the show. Although he has said that had he known that Steven Moffat, a regular writer of the show whose episodes are considered the bests, would replace Davies then he would have stayed. David Tennant's last regular appearance was in the 2010 New Years Day special that was the second part of a two-part finale where the first part aired on Christmas. For his last scene where The Doctor is regenerating, Tennant recorded four different takes of the line "I don't want to go", each with different levels of emotion, with the third take being used as the fourth one would feel too sad over something that has kept the show going for years. In 2013, he returned to play The Doctor once again in the multi-Doctor 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor opposite current Doctor and his successor Matt Smith and John Hurt as a mysterious unknown Doctor.
After playing the character he longed to play since he was a kid, David Tennant continued to work in other projects just as hard as he did before he got to play The Doctor. The day after the first part of his final episode of Doctor Who, Tennant starred in a television movie adaptation of Hamlet opposite Patrick Stewart for the BBC and earlier that year, he hosted PBSs anthology series Masterpiece Contemporary. Other aspirations that David had sought for was auditioning for and being rejected from starring in the famous British-Scottish drama Taggart several times, and being considered one of the few great Scottish actors to not appear on the show. He went on to marry Georgia Moffett, Peter Davison's daughter, on December 30 of 2011 and now has two kids with her. In the years following his departure from the show, Tennant was incorrectly rumored to have a role in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit and was set to star in the John Landis comedy Burke and Hare before having to let the role go for other commitments. So far he has starred in a few movies and television shows, including the Fright Night remake, a small role in 2010s How To Train Your Dragon by Dreamworks, voicing Charles Darwin in the stop-motion animated film The Pirates! Band of Misfits, voiced a character in two episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars which is another franchise he is a fan off, given the lead role in the highly regarded BBC crime drama Broadchurch in 2013 and will be appearing in the American remake, and other movies that are currently in development. In 2011, David reunited with his Doctor Who costar Catherine Tate to star in a production of Much Ado About Nothing in London from May to September. In politics, David Tennant is a public supporter of the Labour Party, although he always avoided the subject during his time as The Doctor since he found it improper. During the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, he took part in various interviews for a series of documentaries that aired each month of 2013 where each one dealt with each of the Doctors, their actors, and their time on the show including Tennant's time. Another thing he did for the 50th anniversary of the show is that he played a parody of himself in a web special that was directed by his father-in-law and previous Doctor, Peter Davison, called The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot alongside his wife and other actors who have appeared on the show including fellow Doctors Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Matt Smith, and other actors. When Elizabeth Sladen died in 2011 from cancer, Tennant wrote a foreword to her autobiography that he then read as an eulogy at her funeral. He tried out for the role of Hannibal Lecter in the Hannibal tv series, and even though he didn't get the part the producers have said that they would love to have him play a psychotic serial killer one day. During the 2012 Olympic Games, many people wanted him to run the opening flames due to his Doctor doing exactly that in a 2006 episode. Although he didn't get to do it, Matt Smith, the current Doctor, ran a part of it in Cardiff instead.