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
The thing that runs through the British film industry even today is a lot of unsung movies are financially the bigger ones. Even though they weren't always the greatest of movies, something in them was very potent which people loved.
The Americans just have a great sort of wit about them.
My Italian granny and my mother made great spaghetti, but it wasn't a kind of southern Italian, Godfather-esque kind of thing - it was a wonderful, big mixing pot of all kinds of people - when you came home from school and your mum wasn't in, there were lots of people you could go to.
I don't think I would have been great in the 17th century. I would have enjoyed the frocks, and certainly some of the food would have been appealing, but the disease and hygiene would have worried me.
I was always admiring people who seemed to conduct themselves with ease in the world. Maybe that's a great gift to give your kids if you can do that. Because they can move through the world without neurosis, this anxiety about everything, which our own parents gave us.
Comic-Con is so legendary, so a great thrill to be invited along.
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.
It was great being brought up in a Glasgow working-class tenement. It wasn't miserable, and it wasn't poverty stricken. It felt very safe, full of delights.
I've only lost my temper three times in my whole life.
I spent four months once doing a play on Broadway.
I've been really terrible in a lot of things because I learned by making mistakes. That makes you a different kind of actor, because you have to figure out for yourself what you do.
Crime is interesting. It's huge and fascinating, and it's what my business, TV and film, is largely based on. But the realities are tragic, and in crime drama you rarely see the pain of bereavement or any consequences. It's reduced to a chess game.
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.
Personally, I have as little to do with politicians as possible. The ones that I've met I've found very boring. They're extremely egotistical, incredibly self-important. If I can help it, I try to stay as far away from them as possible.