10 Doctor Who Background Actors Who Got Themselves Noticed
Those Doctor Who actors and extras whose talents broke through our perception filters!
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello everyone, Ellie here, and we're thrilled to say that this video is sponsored by Magic
00:05the Gathering Doctor Who, but more on that later.
00:08It takes true talent, good looks, or clumsy footing to make a lasting impression on Doctor
00:13Who as a minor background character.
00:16The vast majority are forgotten about as quickly as they appeared, but some have gone on to
00:20leave a lasting mark in the Hooniverse Hall of Fame, or even the entertainment industry
00:25as a whole.
00:26I'm Ellie with WhoCulture here with 10 Doctor Who Background Actors Who Got Themselves Noticed.
00:3110.
00:32Naomi Aki Naomi Aki is a Doctor Who actor so deeply
00:36embedded in the background that you'd be forgiven for forgetting she appeared in the show.
00:40She played the girlfriend of Rigsy and the mother of his child in a brief phone call
00:44in Face the Raven, and also appeared in a deleted scene from that same episode.
00:49Set after Clara's heart-wrenching death, the scene shows her comforting a distraught Rigsy
00:54for whom the impossible girl sacrificed her life.
00:57Despite her only on-screen appearance being excised from the finished edit, Naomi Aki
01:01has gone on to great things.
01:03She recently received acclaim for her performance as Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody,
01:08and also played Lando Calrissian's potential daughter in Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker.
01:13And she'll also soon be seen opposite Robert Pattinson in Oscar winner Bong Joon-ho's Mickey
01:1817.
01:19Doctor Who's loss is very much Hollywood's gain.
01:229.
01:23Sleeping Sontaran Okay, sure, it's hard to be caked underneath
01:26heavy layers of prosthetics, but spare a thought for those minor Doctor Who actors who don't
01:31even get that luxury.
01:33Actors like the poor sod who had to put on a Sontaran helmet and blindly chase Tom Baker
01:38round a Victorian swimming pool.
01:39The Invasion of Time has one of classic Doctor Who's greatest cliffhangers, as the Force
01:43Doctor defeats the tinfoil Vardans only to realise that he's left the door wide open
01:48for the Sontarans to invade Gallifrey.
01:51Sadly, it's all downhill from there, as the story quickly descends into a Scooby-Doo chase
01:55through the TARDIS, which looks suspiciously like an old Victorian hospital.
01:59There is a standout moment, however, when one of the Sontarans chases the Doctor, crashes
02:04through a sun lounger, and stumbles over a step, only for Tom Baker to lob another sun
02:08lounger at him, sending him clattering dangerously close to the edge of the pool.
02:13As one of Doctor Who's most infamous bloopers that was kept in the final edit, it never
02:18fails to raise a big laugh, and has given this particular Sontaran his own special place
02:23in the show's history.
02:248.
02:25Margaret John
02:26Margaret John first appeared as the no-nonsense Megan Jones in Fury from the Deep, sent to
02:32investigate the strange goings-on at the refinery.
02:3438 years later, she returned to the world of Doctor Who in the minor but memorable role
02:39of faceless Grandma Connelly in The Idiot's Lantern.
02:43John had a long and varied career across the decades, having appeared in the likes of Game
02:47of Thrones and Run, Fatboy, Run before her death in 2011.
02:51And while she's probably best known for playing the foul-mouthed Doris in Gavin and
02:55Stacey, it's her minor role as Grandma Connelly that could be her lasting legacy.
03:00Uh, well, I beg to differ actually, because as soon as I just saw the photo of her, do
03:04you know what came to my mind?
03:06Where's the salad?
03:07Where's the salad?
03:08There's your salad, now leave me alone.
03:11Her face is barely seen in the episode, on account of it being sucked into the telly
03:15by the wire.
03:16However, the most remarkable thing about faceless Grandma Connelly is that she actually got
03:20her own action figure, complete with swappable heads.
03:23I think I actually owned that at one point.
03:25Not every background actor gets their own action figure, so it's pretty remarkable,
03:30if unconventional, as a tribute to Margaret John's amazing career.
03:347.
03:35Graham Cole
03:36Graham Cole played all manner of Doctor Who monsters in the early 1980s.
03:40He played a Marshman in Full Circle, the Melchor in The Keeper of Tarkin, and a Cyberman in
03:45The Five Doctors.
03:46He has Blink and you'll miss it appearances out of costume too.
03:49However, it was in another iconic British series that Cole would ultimately make a name
03:54for himself when he was cast as PC Tony Stamp in The Bill.
03:58The character was one of the longest serving cast members in The Beloved Police Soap, which
04:02ran for over 2,000 episodes between 1983 and 2010.
04:06These impressive credits have allowed Cole to brush shoulders with royalty and to establish
04:10himself as an iconic figure in his own right.
04:13Not bad for a guy who started out beneath the layers of prosthetics as Chief Marshman
04:17opposite Tom Baker, eh?
04:18As we mentioned earlier, this video is brought to you in partnership with Magic the Gathering
04:23Doctor Who, every Doctor, any dimension.
04:25There are four new Doctor Who-themed commander decks that are available right now, and each
04:31deck is focused around a different era of the greater show in all of time and space.
04:35There's the Timey Wimey deck, which allows you to enjoy some fish fingers and custard
04:39with the 9th, 10th and 11th Doctors.
04:42There's the Blast from the Past deck, which is focused on the first eight Doctors and
04:45their companions.
04:47The Paradox Power deck, which is all about the 12th and 13th Doctors, and the Masters
04:51of Evil deck, which allows you to unleash your inner master as you take on the role
04:55of all of the Doctor's greatest foes.
04:58Now, my favourite deck is the Paradox Power deck, and it won't surprise any of you to
05:02learn that that's the one with River Song in it.
05:04For some exclusive gameplay, make sure that you check out our recent video where we teamed
05:08up with a bunch of other Whovians to take down that pesky Master, and head to the link
05:13in the description to purchase the complete set now.
05:186.
05:20Terry Walsh
05:21Terry Walsh was John Pertwee and Tom Baker's stump man for some of the more involved sequences
05:26in their Doctor Who eras.
05:27As well as blending into the background as a stump performer and fight arranger, Walsh
05:31also played a handful of usually ill-fated characters, like the tumbling Auton from Terror
05:37of the Autons.
05:38However, it's not these roles that got Terry Walsh noticed during his time on Doctor Who.
05:43Nor was it the time he had to step in for Tom Baker when the star broke his collarbone
05:47on the Sontaran experiment.
05:48It was during the climactic fight scene of The Monster of Peladon Part 4, in which Walsh's
05:53full face and unconvincing John Pertwee wig can clearly be seen on camera.
05:58It's so glaringly obvious that director Lenny Mane had to get Pertwee to record a couple
06:03of lines of dialogue to try and distract viewers.
06:06Unfortunately, in the current age of high-definition Blu-rays and giant TVs, those dubbed lines
06:11don't quite distract from the glaring error.
06:145.
06:15Alexander Devriant
06:16It really says something that, in a trailer featuring a giant Neil Patrick Harris, Donna
06:21Noble threatening to kick an unseen alien's arse, and Kate Stewart's giant Avengers tower,
06:26that it was an unnamed unit soldier who was getting a portion of the fandom hot under
06:30the collar.
06:31Escorting the Doctor and Donna to a rooftop meeting with Kate Stewart, the handsome hero
06:35quickly attracted the attention of thirsty Doctor Who fans on social media, including
06:39our very own Mr. Sean Ferrick.
06:41Bless him.
06:42Thanks to a keen-eyed Twitter user, it's since been confirmed that the soldier is played
06:46by Ted Lasso's Alexander Devriant.
06:48He will be playing Colonel Ibrahim in the final 60th anniversary special, The Giggle.
06:53And while he likely won't be a background actor by the time the anniversary rolls around,
06:58Devriant's passing appearance in the trailer certainly made a good first impression.
07:02There'll be many people eagerly awaiting his first appearance as the Colonel, while
07:06also hoping he'll be joining the Unconfirmed Units spinoff, supposedly coming at some point
07:11in the future.
07:12He just has to survive an encounter with the Toymaker first.
07:14Fingers crossed, eh Sean?
07:164.
07:17John Levine
07:18From one unit soldier to another now, as Sergeant Benton, John Levine played a key role in Doctor
07:23Who's unit family during the 1970s.
07:26However, Levine had been appearing in Doctor Who for several years before his big break.
07:31He'd previously played a Cyberman in The Moonbase and a Yeti in The Web of Fear when
07:35he was starting out as an actor, and he also appeared in the classic BBC police procedural
07:40Zed Cars.
07:41And it was there where he met legendary Doctor Who director Douglas Camfield, who was taken
07:46with Levine's lack of professional training and slight innocence.
07:50It was Camfield who then suggested that Levine play Corporal Benton in the serial The Invasion
07:55when the original actor was fired for poor timekeeping.
07:58As Levine was already signed on to play an extra in this serial, he happily agreed to
08:03the bigger role, and alongside Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier, formed the earliest iteration of
08:08Unit.
08:09And when Camfield returned to direct Inferno, he further established Levine's Benton as
08:13part of the Pertwee era's Unit family.
08:15This is very much a clear case of it's not what you know, it's who you know.
08:203.
08:21Johnny Lee Miller
08:22The cast of the fifth Doctor Classic, Kinder, is stacked, but the most famous actor in the
08:27entire cast is one of the background artists, a very young Johnny Lee Miller, who played
08:32the uncredited role of Fruit-Bearing Child in this serial.
08:37That Fruit-Bearing Child would grow up to play Sick Boy in both Trainspotting movies,
08:42the other modern-day Sherlock Holmes in Elementary, and weirdly, a Hollywood-handsome version
08:47of former Prime Minister John Major in The Crown Season 5.
08:51What's strange about Johnny Lee Miller's one and only contribution to Doctor Who is
08:55that it's just that.
08:57A quick rifle through the various wild rumours about potential Doctor actors, from Chris
09:01Marshall to Denzel Washington, reveals that Johnny Lee Miller has never been linked to
09:05the role at any point in his career.
09:08And given that he's now played Sherlock Holmes, he probably doesn't want to play another eccentric
09:13British genius in a long-running TV show, so missed your chance there, Doctor Who.
09:172.
09:18Josh Dallas
09:19Everyone has to start somewhere, right?
09:21Even Prince Charming.
09:23American actor Josh Dallas was working in the UK at the start of his career, and had
09:27a very small role in the hugely important Doctor Who episode that introduced River Song,
09:32the best character.
09:33He's since gone on to high-profile roles in Manifest and Once Upon a Time, but he started
09:39out as a literal face on a slab.
09:41But hey, if it's good enough for Shirley Henderson, Dallas played Node 2 in Silence
09:45in the Library.
09:46You know, one of those computer interfaces with a literal human face attached to it?
09:49In a deliciously dark Stephen Moffat twist, it transpired that these Nodes were fitted
09:54with the faces of those that had donated them after death.
09:57This set up one of Moffat's greatest cliffhangers, as Donna Noble is later saved to one of the
10:01Nodes.
10:02It's a tiny but vital role, and will likely be a footnote in Dallas' CV.
10:06That said, he must get a tiny thrill whenever he's approached at conventions to sign a photo
10:11of Node 2 instead of his iconic roles in things such as Once Upon a Time, or Manifest, or
10:16even Thor, for that matter.
10:181.
10:19Kenneth Williams Right at the start of An Unearthly Child,
10:23a young boy interrupts his two chattering classmates with a Kenneth Williams-style,
10:27ooh yes.
10:28It's a moment that always guarantees a chuckle from Doctor Who fans, despite how many times
10:32they might have seen the episode.
10:34So much so that the wonderfully funny and forensic Toby Haddock set out to identify
10:39this minor actor and relate their life story on his Too Much Information podcast.
10:44Played by actor Richard Wilson, this TV school boy would later get a small speaking role
10:48in the movie To Sir With Love, and to differentiate himself from his Empty Child and One Foot
10:53in the Grave namesake, Richard Wilson, he changed his name to Richard Alexander, but
10:58later quit professional acting for a career in hospitality.
11:01In the Coal Hill School set spin-off Class, a young boy called Kevin was memorialised
11:06as K. Williams on the extensive list of dead pupils and teachers, including D. Pink and
11:11C. Oswald.
11:12A coincidence, but a pleasing one nonetheless.
11:14More interesting still, future second Doctor Companion Fraser Hines was under consideration
11:19for a background role in the Coal Hill scenes during Doctor Who's pilot episode.
11:23Again, what a small world.
11:25Or universe.
11:26Who-niverse.
11:27And that's everything for this list, but for more before-they-were-famous Doctor Who
11:31roles, why not check out 10 future stars who appeared in Doctor Who.
11:35In the meantime, I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words of River Song herself, goodbye
11:39sweeties.