Steven Moffat considered casting Peter Capaldi as the Eleventh Doctor Who.
While Peter, 55, was revealed as the Twelfth Doctor during a BBC One special 'Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor' on Sunday (04.08.13), executive producer and head writer Steven admitted Peter was one of the choices last time they were casting the role, which ultimately went to Matt Smith.
He said: "With all parts like the Doctor, James Bond or Sherlock Holmes there comes a right time for the right person to play it. Oddly enough this person briefly flicked through my mind the last time and I didn't think they were right. But this time that moment has arrived."
Although casting a new Doctor can be a daunting process, Steven insists Peter's appointment was a unanimous decision.
He said: "The Doctor is an icon people are highly invested in who the new Doctor is. The traditional auditioning process is that you see lots and lots of people, that's what we did last time. Oddly enough on most occasions on 'Doctor Who' it hasn't happened that way. This time we all had an idea, we all had the same idea and it was a quite different idea. So we got our notional number 12 round to my house and we made a home video of that person being the Doctor and showed it around, showed the people who need to be in on that decision - because it's like appointing the President or something - and everyone just said yes that's the Doctor.
"Three words to describe the new Doctor - different from Matt."
Peter has been a fan of the show since he was a child and used to pretend the be the Doctor.
He said: "Even though I'm a life long 'Doctor Who' fan I hadn't really played Doctor Who since I was nine in the playground. As an adult actor I've worked on it so I downloaded some old scripts from the Internet and worked on those in front of the mirror. But Steven had already written for some scenes that referred to a Doctor of my ilk.
"I was filming in Prague in the BBC's adaptation of 'The Three Musketeers' when the call came in. I had my phone on silent so I missed it. It was my dear agent. I rang her up, and she said,'Hello Doctor.' I just started to laugh and I haven't stopped laughing since."
Tagged in Matt Smith Steven Moffat Peter Capaldi