Doctor Who’s Peter Capaldi Reveals The Reason Why He Continually Apologized To The Crew While Playing The Twelfth Doctor

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Peter Capaldi played the Twelfth Doctor on Doctor Who from 2014 to 2017, following Matt Smith’s run and initiating a new cycle of the Doctor’s regenerations, as seen in “The Time of The Doctor.” While he doesn’t plan to reprise the role, Capaldi enjoys discussing his experience on the show, including why he frequently apologized to the cast and crew while filming his scenes.

Each Doctor is different, but they all tend to explain complex ideas using strange and imaginative science fiction terms. This is fun to watch and listen to, but as Peter Capaldi shared on the podcast Half the Example, it meant he couldn’t memorize all of his dialogue. His solution? A trick other actors who’ve played The Doctor have also used.

The biggest challenge for me was performing the show, and it required a huge amount of effort. It was great work, but there was simply never enough time to memorize all the lines. As an actor, your main job is to know your lines and deliver them, but with constant rewrites happening by Thursday, that became impossible. By Friday, I’d completely lost track of what I was supposed to say. I ended up having to ask if I could tape my lines to the TARDIS scanner each morning. I later found out that other Doctors had been doing this since the very beginning! I didn’t particularly like it, though. I’d much rather be fully prepared and know the script inside and out.

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The Doctor has journeyed throughout time and space for centuries in their famously spacious blue box, gaining immense knowledge about aliens, history, and countless other things. While fans wouldn’t change a thing about the Time Lord’s adventures, Peter Capaldi initially worried about remembering all his lines. He often apologized for this, and thankfully, he could use the TARDIS console to review them when needed. It makes you wonder how he handled forgetting lines during scenes filmed outside the TARDIS set, though!

Peter Capaldi explained in the interview that being the Twelfth Doctor on Doctor Who wasn’t just about saying the lines; he really focused on making each speech sound unique and memorable.

The challenge is that the Doctor has a significant role with a lot of lengthy speeches. Simply delivering those speeches feels like just presenting information to advance the plot, and that doesn’t work. Instead, you need to find creative ways to make them engaging and entertaining – to really bring them to life. It takes time to develop those ideas and practice how to deliver them effectively.

Peter Capaldi was a huge Doctor Who fan growing up, so starring as The Doctor was a lifelong dream. Like all actors who play the role, his time on the show eventually ended, with his last episode being the Christmas special, “Twice Upon a Time.” While new audio adventures featuring the Twelfth Doctor have been created since then, they are now voiced by Jacob Dudman.

It’s currently not possible to stream episodes featuring Peter Capaldi as Doctor Who in the United States; you’ll need to buy them. Doctor Who will be back with a new Christmas special in late 2026, marking the first episode since the BBC ended its co-production deal with Disney+.

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2026-01-04 17:10