‘Doctor Who’: Ncuti Gatwa Says Fans Will See Pain & Fun With Fifteenth Doctor After Bigeneration

The Fifteenth Doctor’s adventures are officially beginning, and Ncuti Gatwa has already shown, just in the last part of the third Doctor Who 60th anniversary special, that he is absolutely fantastic in the role.

The sci-fi series threw fans for a loop when, in “The Giggle,” Rather than the typical regeneration after The Toymaker (Neil Patrick Harris) delivered a fatal blow with a Galvanic beam, The Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant) bigenerated and the Fifteenth split off from him. That twist “is just so exciting, to know that Russell [T Davies] is changing things up because that’s the nature of the show,” Gatwa tells TV Insider. “The show is about change, embracing the new.”

That “little taste of Fifteen” that ended with him flying off in the TARDIS before the Christmas special included Gatwa’s Doctor pointing out he’s fine because Fourteen healed himself. And now, as seen in the trailer for “The Church on Ruby Road,” The Doctor is dancing at a nightclub. Will we be seeing more of that fun, relaxed side from The Doctor going forward?

“Certainly he is, like they have all been, endlessly curious and a bit of a lover of mystery, just can’t help themselves,” Gatwa shares. “It’s like that kid that can’t help but push the button, [who] just wants to see what this button does. They’ve got that coursing through the veins and so they love fun and they love exploring the universe and they love human life and just exploring all the intricacies of it. And they understand the need for good and bad and how that all fits in. So definitely they will be having fun. They are excitable.”

That being said, The Doctor remains “emotional. The Doctor has two hearts. The amount that he’s feeling is a lot,” the Doctor Who star continues. “He feels things deeply, and I think that his emotion and his ability to be vulnerable is his strength. His ability to empathize is what makes him so strong. So definitely you will see fun, but you will see pain there as well.”

It’s in the Christmas special that The Doctor will meet his new companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson). At first, he’s drawn to her because “he just starts spotting lots of things going wrong around her,” previews Gatwa of the adventure that features goblins. “There’s got to be something about why bad luck keeps following her specifically around, like what is the universe trying to say?”

So he’s already worrying about Ruby when he meets her. “There’s something about [her],” Gatwa says, “and that mystery of Ruby Sunday continues throughout the whole season. Her curiosity and her bravery are two things that I think he loves about humans and the humans that he picks up as his companions — bravery, curiosity, and the ability to put other people’s needs before their own, someone that was willing to risk their lives and go into a supernatural or extraterrestrial situation in order to save a baby. Whoa, I love that. The Doctor’s already, ‘Yes, you can come with me in the TARDIS around the universe and save it with me. This is what we’re doing together.'”

Their relationship “is super mischievous, and they just love getting themselves into trouble and getting out of it,” he adds.

Doctor Who, 2023 Christmas Special, Monday, December 25, 12:55PM ET, Disney+