Rise to Fame
A school essay at Paisley Grammar School listed his life goal as playing the Doctor in Doctor Who. Tennant spent his twenties doing Scottish TV and RSC stage work before Russell T Davies cast him in Casanova (2005), liked what he saw, and offered him the TARDIS months later. The Tenth Doctor ran 2005-2010, won four National Television Awards, and never fully left the cultural conversation. His return as the Fourteenth Doctor in 2023 wasn't nostalgia bait. It felt like the show admitting it still hadn't replaced him.
In the Spotlight
Two consecutive years hosting the BAFTAs (2024 and 2025) says something about where he stands in the British industry. Rivals (Disney+, 2024) earned him strong reviews as a scheming aristocrat, with Disney+ renewing it for a second season. The Hack (2025) casts him as the journalist who helped break the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Since his International Emmy for Des (2020), the project choices have looked nothing like each other.
Side Notes
Born David McDonald, he renamed himself after Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys to register with Equity. He married Georgia Moffett, who played his artificially created daughter in a 2008 Doctor Who episode, and she's the biological daughter of Peter Davison, who was Tennant's favorite Doctor growing up. He was born with an extra toe on his right foot and holds a Guinness World Record for most words in a radio drama. The whole thing reads like a writer invented him.