Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker on becoming a role model, #MeToo and keeping her accent

Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker talks about her history-making turn as the series’ first female Doctor and the importance of having heroes that don’t look like you. 

It’s awfully hard to overstate how important the new season of Doctor Who is.

Whovians have been waiting for over 50 years to see a woman play the Doctor, and if her performance in the season 11 premiere is any indication, star Jodie Whittaker is everything they’ve been waiting for. Her Doctor is clever and creative, tough and compassionate, with a bit of a madcap streak thrown in for good measure.

In short, she is the Doctor, in every way that has ever mattered.

Ahead of her groundbreaking debut as the Thirteenth Doctor, the star sat down with the press at New York Comic Con to discuss the sci-fi series’ new season and how it feels to be the first woman playing the titular Time Lord. (Or, to be more accurate, Time Lady.)

Well before Thirteen ever appeared in anything more substantial than a minute-long clip announcing Whittaker’s Doctor Who casting, fans around the world jumped at the opportunity to dress up as the first female Doctor. Women, little girls – and, yes, a few men – all embraced Thirteen’s looks. Geek fashion outlet Her Universe created a whole line around the Doctor’s costume. All of this before we’d spent any significant time with the character, or even officially seen her onscreen, in some cases.

In case it wasn’t obvious: A female Doctor is kind of a big deal.

When asked about her new, immediate status as a role model to women and girls everywhere even before she’s even properly taken on the role, Whittaker seemed well aware of the gravity of the moment.

“I think it’s wonderful,” she declared, “because when I was younger, the characters and people I looked up to in roles within film and television were most of the time played by men. And I didn’t question it. I was absolutely happy to look up to those, and I think the suggestion that a girl is a hero for a girl and a man is a hero for all — hopefully, we’re now realizing that’s not the case.”

“You can look up to people whether they look similar to you or not,” Whittaker continued. “It’s been kind of expected of us [as women] our entire lives.”

Picture Shows: Yasmin Khan (MANDIP GILL), Graham O’Brien (BRADLEY WALSH), The Doctor (JODIE WHITTAKER), Ryan Sinclair (TOSIN COLE). Photo: Giles Keyte/BBC America

The arrival of Doctor Who’s first female Doctor feels especially timely as the entertainment industry, and, quite frankly, society at large, finds itself grappling with issues of sexism, representation, and harassment.

Though Whittaker admits she was cast prior to the rise of the #MeToo movement in late 2017, she nevertheless calls her presence on the show “timely without being linked” to it. “For me, the importance is the united voice of women being heard,” she said. “It’s being listened to, and now in every capacity, in #MeToo and Time’s Up, and representation onscreen and gender pay differences.”

“It wasn’t jumping on to something, being cast in this role, because I was cast beforehand,” Whittaker explains. “But the fact that this year, the past year, and hopefully the future is about a more inclusive and safe and open to conversation environment for us.”

The Thirteenth Doctor’s authenticity doesn’t just stop at her gender, however. It’s also in her voice. Whittaker has chosen to use her natural, Yorkshire accent in the role, rather than adopting a more traditional British tone.

[Insert your own joke involving the Ninth Doctor’s “Lots of planets have a North!” line here.]

Whittaker noted that many of her Doctor Who predecessors had used their natural voices, particularly Christopher Eccleston, whose Northern accent is fairly similar to her own.

“Peter (Capaldi) did his own dialect, and Matt (Smith)’s is a bit more of a heightened version of his. David (Tennant) is the only one who’s different, in the sense that he adopted an English accent.”

“There was never a question I wouldn’t use my voice,” Whittaker said. “I came to the audition and it never felt wrong. It’s been exciting. And I’m lucky I’m not learning, you know, seven pages of dialogue and having to learn an accent as well.”

She is the Doctor though — so it seems likely she’d succeed.

Doctor Who‘s eleventh season airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on BBC America. Keep an eye on Culturess for more coverage of the new season!