Peter Capaldi reveals extent of Dr Who knowledge

NEW Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi has spoken of how his anorak-like devotion to the show meant he did not even need to be shown how to work the Tardis.

Peter Capaldi. Picture: Getty

The Scots actor said he had to use extreme patience in the first few weeks of filming when members of the crew attempted to show him how to operate the time machine.

“I had to be very patient, because there were always very nice prop guys telling me how to work the Tardis, and I was like: ‘I know how to work the Tardis! I’ve known for a very long time how to work the Tardis. Probably longer than you. So you don’t need to tell me!’” he said in an interview this weekend.

Capaldi’s nerdish devotion of the sci-fi franchise has been well documented.

As a teenager he inundated the production team with fan mail and during the live TV announcement on BBC he was presented with a letter his 15-year-old self wrote to the Radio Times, praising its Doctor Who coverage, which Capaldi sheepishly referred to as “the full anorak”.

Capaldi described his Doctor incarnation as “a slightly more mysterious figure” than his predecessors.

He said the relationship between “the domestic and the epic” was what appealed to him most about the programme.

“And I love monsters. Everybody loves monsters,” he added.

Speaking of his new role, Capaldi showed a mixture of apprehension and quiet confidence.

“The nice thing about Doctor Who, I think, is whether people like it or don’t like it, you know that somewhere, somebody loves you, and will always love you,” he said. “And the more everybody else hates you, the more they’ll love you. ‘He was my Doctor’, they will say.”