Peter Capaldi
Peter Capaldi
Peter Dougan Capaldiis a Scottish actor, writer and director, best known for being the twelfth and current actor to play the title role in the long-running BBC One sci-fi series Doctor Who. He has played numerous roles in film and television including the role of Malcolm Tucker, a spin doctor in the BBC comedy series The Thick of It and its film spinoff In the Loop, for which he has received four British Academy Television Award nominations, winning Best Male...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth14 April 1958
CityGlasgow, Scotland
I never really think of acting and directing as being separate; they are just different expressions of the same thing.
I'm not terribly well read. My wife forces books into my hands and insists I read them, which I'm grateful to her for. She made me read 'War and Peace.' The whole thing. It was amazing, but I had to hide it. You can't walk round reading 'War and Peace' - it's like you're in a comedy sketch and you think you're smart.
I lived through a golden period where society felt that it was good to help people who didn't have a great deal of money fulfil their potential.
I'm creative. I can't relax unless I've got some project on the go. I'm somebody from art school, and art school during the punk era, when you just had a go at whatever came along.
If people enjoy my profile from the privacy of their own home, that's entirely up to you.
I'm not saying that all politicians are awful. I don't know any of them well enough to say whether they're awful or not. But almost every day, you find out something about them that's appalling. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised any longer.
If you put me in a real Tardis, I dread to think what would happen to the universe.
I know what 'Doctor Who' fans are like because I am a 'Doctor Who' fan myself. They're good people.
I like the constant rise and fall of the British film industry. But above all, I like the workhorses who kept going no matter what.
If I was to meet my eight-year-old self, I would say, 'Don't listen to what they say about you. Wear your anorak with pride!'
In Peter Ackroyd's book 'London: The Biography,' he describes the route of the medieval wall that enclosed the original city. Take the book and follow it from the Tower of London via the Barbican to Ludgate Hill. You experience the real history of London.
If you travel in time and space, most of the people you know and love will eventually be gone. But you'll also be able to go and find them again.
I think all actors experience ups and downs.
Even if I hadn't been cast as Doctor Who, my acting would probably have been influenced by William Hartnell or Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, and all of the other guys. Because those were the actors that I really watched every moment of, as opposed to Laurence Olivier.