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Ten Thoughts Why Johnny Depp Can't Be Doctor Who

Published Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:26:04 -0500

Last updated Tue, 06 Jul 2010 02:10:41 -0500

Okay, this looks like silly rumour time. The stuff that tabloid headlines are made of. But with io9 jumping on Tor.com's original report seemingly based on bizarre documents on PubArticles. is there something in the air? Johnny Depp to play The Doctor in a big screen Hollywood adaptation of Doctor Who by Russell T Davies? Surely not.

Certainly Davies has been working on a Who movie from his LA offices. The BBC announced there was one in the works, only for Davies and co to scotch that to the press as mere internet rumours. And never addressing that it was actually the Beeb that announced it.

But Johnny Depp? Okay, Ten Thoughts on why he shouldn't. And why he probably isn't.

1. He's American. There is something just quintessentially British about the Doctor. Only Brits have played him on TV and the big screen. And while Johnny Depp is wonderful at pulling off quite the transformation, and has done many a time, it feels like a betrayal of Queen and Country. Sacrilege. heresy. Davies might get taken to the tower. Make the Doctor ginger, black, female, old, young, anything – but never American. Might as well give him a gun. Or make him French.

2. David Tennant is free-ish. Certainly enough for a movie. Certainly enough for the millions it would bring. Certainly enough considering his rising star in Hollywood right now.

3. Depp has played Captain Jack in Pirates Of The Carribean three times with a fourth on the way. There is a prominent Captain Jack in the Doctor Who world played by John Barrowman. It would just get confusing.

4. Eye patches are not cool.

5. Doctor Who continuity is convulted enough. Do we want to add a separate film continuity to it? At least with David Tennant, you could work it in easily enough.

6. He's already been a regeneration of Heath Ledger in Doctor Parnassus. Can he be in another Doctor movie so soon?

7. Matt Smith will be judged in comparison. And lovely as he is, Smith is a relatively inexperienced actor compared to Depp. It's like starring in a local production of Hamlet, only for the RSC to set up down the road, and cloning the late Lawrence Olivier to take the role, opening on the same night as yours. It's just not cricket.

8. Depp has already been in The Fast Show and The Vicar Of Dibley. Isn't that enough British TV shows for the man?

9. Because this sort of thing should just not be encouraged.

10. He'd probably make a really good Doctor. But it just cannot happen. It just shouldn't. It feels terribly self conscious, casting an overpowering name. It's why Eddie Izzard would have been a very bad choice, yet exhinbiting all sorts of quirks and tics that are very Doctorish. Casting Depp would make the show bigger on the outside. And that's just not right.

It just can't be true, okay? It just can't.

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