Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa says biggest acting challenge was keeping 12 babies happy on set

The tots made up a dozen co-stars alongside the 15th Doctor’s companion Ruby Sunday in the first episode airing on May 11 on BBC iPlayer and Disney+ worldwide.

Ncuti Gatwa has revealed the biggest challenge of his acting career as he tried to keep 12 babies happy as he filmed the first episode of the new Doctor Who Series.

The tots made up a dozen co-stars alongside the 15th Doctor’s companion Ruby, played by 19-year old Millie Gibson. The Scots actor, 31, returns as the Time Lord in the episode called Space Babies will air on May 11.

Space Babies and The Devil's Chord will both debut on the BBC’s iPlayer and Disney+, which has exclusive rights for the rest of the world, from midnight before airing prior to Eurovision in the evening.

Admitting he shared nursery duties with Millie during filming of the episode, Gatwa said: “It was beautiful.

“The whole crew got involved in trying to keep the babies entertained. We got thrown in at the deep end into a mad situation. It was the chaos and the madness of the fun making that show.”

Gibson added: “The babies were great co-stars, actors. We got them crying and happy. Ncuti had no idea what was happening because we were trying to keep them happy.

"It was just mad. We were trying to keep them happy. We had to have nursery rhymes on our phones so that they would look at us.”

The pair spoke to Gaby Roslin who stood in for Zoe Ball’s Radio 1 breakfast show yesterday.

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Gatwa said: “There’s no going back now. I feel like I’m Doctor Who and I feel I’m ready for people to see the show. I feel ready for the show to come out.

“I love it with all my heart. It’s my first memory of life, not just television but of life. The very first memory is William Hartnell regenerating into Patrick Troughton.

“The very first regeneration. If you look up the date I was under three. Every so often, I’m like, woah. I’m Doctor Who. It’s a concept I can’t wrap my head around.”

On keeping his beard as the Doctor, he said: “Initially, there was a conversation about keeping me clean shaven for Doctor Who, but I’d spent the last four years playing a child [on Sex Education], at the age of 30, so I said, ‘Let me have my moustache back’.”

He laughed: “Bella, my make-up artist, would present me with a little bag of pubes every morning. I went through the process of sticking them on for two months.”

Other episodes will see the doctor team up with the Fab Four and a Bridgeton-style storyline. Gatwa, who started out in theatre at Dundee Rep, also plans to return to the stage in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

He’ll play hedonistic bachelor Algernon Moncrieff in Wilde’s “trivial comedy for serious people” at the National Theatre next winter.

It marks his first major role in a theatre production since finding fame in Sex Education and being cast as the 15th Doctor in the BBC’s science-fiction series.

Born in Rwanda, Gatwa grew up in Scotland. He graduated in acting from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and started his career with half a dozen productions at Dundee Rep including The BFG and Victoria in 2013.

Last year he performed a scene from Romeo and Juliet, opposite My Neighbour Totoro’s Mei Mac, for King Charles’s Coronation Concert.

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His other stage productions have included A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Shakespeare’s Globe, directed by Emma Rice in 2016, and The Rivals at the Watermill in Newbury, directed by Jonathan Humphreys in 2018.

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