On series eight’s slightly different tone, pace and longer scenes:
Steven Moffat: To different degrees, that carries on throughout the series, in different ways. But that’s not an accident, that’s a very explicitly clear idea. I was starting to think there was a danger we were getting faster every year and soon the episodes would be over in four minutes [laughter]. Not that I didn’t like that, I loved the way we did it, but every idea has its end and there has to be a new one
On whether Steven Moffat is planning on bringing the Master back anytime soon:
Steven Moffat: [Abruptly] No [laughter]. I accidentally just said the truth. No, not really. I think the story’s sort of done. I thought what Russell did with that was so brilliant, because I did think it was over. Once you’d lost Roger Delgado who was so brilliant, it was tough to keep it… it’s like Moriarty in Sherlock - yes, I know – you think, you’re a great master villain, you know what you do a lot, you lose! You’re always tremendously confident and then you’re humiliatingly defeated and you don’t remember that the next time you pop up with your ridiculous plan. So no, the Doctor doesn’t really need an arch-enemy, so we’ll go for new ones. So, sorry John Simm.
On the decision to keep Capaldi’s Scottish accent for the role:
Steven Moffat: One of the first things we talked about on that day, and you just said – and I think it was a very right thing to say – I need to move the Doctor closer to me. But also, what does it mean? His accent must be acquired randomly, it doesn’t make any sense what accent he has. Why shouldn’t he be Scottish?
Peter Capaldi: And also, he’s had an English accent for years. The idea that he doesn’t have an accent is ridiculous. I just felt that it was important, as Steven says, to try to bring the Doctor to me. A lot of actors who I enjoy, they don’t become the part, the part becomes them, so you pull it more closely to yourself. Funnily enough, I think the Doctor is closer to me than, for instance, Malcolm Tucker was. There was a bigger leap, more stuff to do, more distance to cover. [Agreeing with host Boyd Hilton] I am much nicer.
On the new Doctor’s costume:
Peter Capaldi: Lots of people have different ideas about what the Doctor looks like. Sometimes you find yourself dressed in a lot of crushed velvet and long scarves and floppy hats because people tend to think that’s how Doctor Who should look! I just always saw Doctor Who in dark colours, but perhaps that’s because it was black and white television when I was growing up!
[…] There was just one version of it in which I felt like Doctor Who and I thought that’s what we should go with. I also wanted to try and do something that was stark and simple and easily imitable, that kids wouldn’t have to spend a lot of money on, they could just button up their school shirt or whatever and wear a dark jacket.
On Capaldi’s well-publicised insistence that there be no flirting between his Doctor and Clara:
Peter Capaldi: I think that was inflated in the article into something that it never was. I don’t recall having this conversation with Steven, but I can remember in my own head thinking that Papa and Nicole would be a dangerous route to take [laughter].
Steven Moffat: It’s an interesting one, how powerful that flirting thing is. David Tennant was a magnificent, brilliant, flirty, sexy Doctor, and when Matt came in to do it, he decided that he would be rubbish at flirting, doing this [flailing his arms] every time he gets a kiss – if you look, every time he does it, it’s a disaster, it never works, he flails like that – the only time he manages it successfully, he realises River isn’t actually in the room. So we haven’t had a properly flirtatious Doctor for years really. The idea had peaked and gone away, but my God, it worked in its time and Doctor Who’s a lot richer for that scene between Billie Piper and David Tennant on the beach in Doomsday. You keep changing.
However, it’s got to be said for those of you who actually have pored over the classic series, flirting did not begin in 2005! Watch Patrick Troughton in the first episode of The Enemy Of The World, he’s practically climbing over her! [Laughter] And actually, William Hartnell flirting with Barbara is disgusting, every time Ian Chesterton says something, it’s ‘You’re an idiot’, Barbara says something, it’s ‘You’re fantastic’. It’s the beginning of that story! The old fraud.
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