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 went to art school in the days when it was what you did if you didn't want to be like everybody else. You wanted to be strange and different, and art school encouraged that. We hated the drama students - they were guys with pipes and cardigans.
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 wouldn't be here if it were not for the grant system that paid for me to go to art school - because my parents couldn't have afforded it.
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.
Hollywood producers aren't going to say, 'Get me that swearing, grey-haired, headless chicken. We need him for our new 'High School Musical' movie!'
When I was acting, I was always asking abut the mechanics of filmmaking. I decided I would learn what everyone on set was doing, so I would feel less threatened.
What's now shocking is I can't say anything publicly without it having a life. Not because I have extraordinary views but because people are keen on conflict, so they'll make that the story.
Recently, I dreamed that I returned home to find my wife had married Ray Winstone. They were kind and let me stay, but the whole thing was awkward.
I was initially rather charmed by David Cameron, but I think he's revealing himself to be a slightly darker and less charismatic figure than he first appeared. There's a brutality about him.
I think the truth is always interesting, but with politicians, you don't get to see much of that.
I think the whole spoiler thing has taken over the media.
My parents didn't take me to the theatre to see Chekhov when I was growing up - we went to see 'Francie and Josie' once every five years.
The Americans just have a great sort of wit about them.
My childhood growing up in that part of Glasgow always sounds like some kind of sub-Catherine Cookson novel of earthy working-class immigrant life, which to some extent it was, but it wasn't really as colourful that.