David Tennant reveals former agent told him "don't touch" Doctor Who

David Tennant is renowned in genre fiction. Appearing in the Marvel universe as Zebediah Kilgrave in Jessica Jones, Amazon Prime's Good Omens adaptation as Crowley, and of course the tenth Doctor in Doctor Who.

Tennant remains a legend of British television, but there was a time when he might have dodged the role of Doctor Who. Speaking on his podcast, Tennant and his wife Georgia told the story of how a former agent tried to steer the actor away from the role.

"They come to you, they sort of lure you to the house with, 'Come watch a bit of an episode.' You go along and then they go, 'And guess what! Do you want to play it?' And you pretend to think about it for like a day or something," Georgia Tennant said.

Georgia and David both agreed that the actor was clearly going to take the role, but it took some time to process. "I sort of had to process everything that it meant," David said. "I had an agent at the time that was like, 'Don't touch it, it's not going to work.' Not my current agent, a previous brilliant agent who's since retired, but she didn't call that correctly as it turns out. She said, 'It's not going to work, you don't want to have that hung around your neck.'"

It's hard to imagine Doctor Who without David Tennant, who has since returned on multiple occasions to play the character. While many fans will still fondly remember Tennant for his time in Doctor Who, the actor isn't solely remembered for this performance, and the role rocketed him to further fame.