David Tennant quotes:

Unlike other enduring characters such as 'Sherlock Holmes' or 'Tarzan,' being the 'Doctor' allows you a certain freedom that is both very demanding and very thrilling. It allows you to make the character using elements of yourself.

If you can sell that you're the King of Scotland, or Henry V on a tiny stage in a studio theater somewhere, then you can probably sell that you're a starship captain or a time traveler.

I love a bit of political drama; 'The West Wing' is probably my favourite television series of all time.

Paula Milne was really the first thing that drew me to 'The Politician's Husband.'

I mean, you know, while I'm acting on stage I'm ranking quite high, but in a room with Barack Obama I'm probably into negative digits. I never feel very famous...

I'm as happy doing 'Postman Pat' as I am doing 'Hamlet.'

I don't think I have ever done anything for this age of children before, a pre-school audience. Generally speaking, we don't have vivid memories of that age and what influenced us, yet clearly they are hugely formative years and it's really important that we can create television of a high quality for that audience.

I think if my eight-year-old self could see me at the Royal Albert Hall winning a prize for playing the Doctor on telly, he would need a stiff shot of Irn-Bru.

When you first read a script is the purest moment. That's when you can understand how an audience will ultimately receive it. The first reading of the script is so important because you're experiencing it all for the first time, and it's then that you really know if it's going to work or not.

The gritty indie films are a lot rarer than the films that aspire to fill multiplexes.

I was hugely formed by stories I was told as a child whether that was in a book, the cinema, theatre or television and probably television more than any medium is what influenced me as a child and formed my response to literature, story-telling and, therefore, the world around me.

Drama school is a pretty intense experience, and I think it changes who you are.

I still am a geek, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I see no shame in having an unhealthy obsession with something.

I was very small, about 3 or 4 I think, and just wanted to be the people on telly telling these wonderful stories. Obviously the idea grew and matured with me but I can't ever remember wanting to do anything else. I've just sort of taken it for granted all my life that that was what I would do.

I've been quite lucky in that I've managed to tick off a few of my dream roles, really. Beyond that, you wait for the next script to come in that will have the dream role that you don't know exists yet, I suppose.

I've always been a geek and slightly awkward... slightly umm... I was never the cool kid at school.

It's always that tricky thing with a remake, especially when it's something that's well loved. You're coming to something that has a built-in fascination, but with that comes people ready to feel disgruntled that it's being remade at all.

I have such fond memories of watching 'Doctor Who' when I was a kid and growing up, that if I've left anybody anywhere with memories as fond, then I feel like I've done my job.

When you're older, you want to be scared because you understand more where the boundaries between fantasy and reality are, and I suppose they are more blurred the younger you are.

How galling to watch someone who looks like you, who basically is you, do all the shagging you didn't get to do.

The Doctor' is the kind of character - because the guest cast is changing all the time, there are very few constants in the show, so the 'Doctor'- when you're there, you're in it a lot. You're speaking a lot.

Getting the call to be in The Goblet of Fire was like being welcomed into the most exclusive upper circle of some elite actors' club. You sit on set with the cream of the National Theatre and the RSC, all clutching wands or wearing witches' hats.

I remember a conversation with my parents about who the people on the TV were, and learning they were actors and they acted out this story and just thinking that was the most fantastic notion, and that's what I want to do. And I remember understanding very clearly the difference between the fantasy and reality of that, and that making it even more exciting.

I'm quite happy to leave it still feeling that way, leave it before it starts feeling like a job. ... I have such fond memories of watching 'Doctor Who' when I was a kid and growing up, that if I've left anybody anywhere with memories as fond, then I feel like I've done my job.

I often stop when I'm doing something, in the middle of rehearsals or some other job, and I try to take a minute to think Okay, this might be as good as it gets, so drink it in, appreciate it now. So far, I've been lucky because another job has always come along to equal the last.

To me, it feels like 'The Doctor' has to have a long coat, and that's something imprinted on me from childhood, because he always did. And there's something heroic in a flapping coat, but at the same time, I need to get rid of it sometimes and just be a scrawny guy in a suit that doesn't quite fit.

I'd love to work with Aaron Sorkin on something. Just the way he writes, he has no fear in writing people that are fiercely intelligent, and I love that.

Some people live more in 20 years than others do in 80. It's not the time that matters, it's the person.

If you speak in a different accent, you begin to move in a slightly different way. You think in a slightly different way. I think it's part of trying to find what makes a character.

I'm a good person, I hope. But I'm never as good as I want to be, never as nice as I want to be, never as generous as I want to be.

Back in 2005, when I was Christopher Eccleston, we saw one of the largest increases on record, of CO2 in the atmosphere. Unless we keep the rise in global temperature to under 2 degrees, by the time I'm Daniel Radcliffe or wee Jimmy Crankie, I won't be able to save the planet. I won't be here to help you -- well I might, but I'll be that bloke who won Any Dream Will Do.

I was always going to act, literally ever since I was tiny. In fact, I have Doctor Who to thank for that. I wanted to become an actor after being obsessed with Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor Who, in the 1970s. His was the definitive performance of all time in anything.

And the very fact of how you speak somehow influences who you are. The way you move, the way you think, it seeps into your being, and it's quite hard to really break that down entirely.

Twitter! It's like being stalked by committee!

I think it would be self-indulgent to go, "Oh, I'm going to make this character different by giving him a quirk of some kind." I don't think that serves the story, particularly. But even very similar scenes with a different set of actors, a different set of circumstances, it starts to evolve as a different character.

I've always been a geek and slightly awkwardâ?¦ slightly ummâ?¦ I was never the cool kid at school.

Moths are the ones that freak me out. It's something to do with the way that, if they get squashed, they turn to dust. There's something very wrong about that. It all feels a bit Gothic.

We seem to spend a lot of our time in very small spaces spouting a lot of dialogue very quickly.

When you're playing a real person there's a balance between playing the person in the script and playing the person as he was in life. You have to be respectful and true to who that person was, but at the same time tell the story in the film.

An accent, obviously, it's to do with the way your mouth works and the sounds that come out of your head, but somehow it informs everything about you, I think.

All roads seem to have come back to Doctor Who in our life. But, no, it was a huge part of my growing up. I was a massive fan and it certainly inspired me to get into acting and to be ... one of those people that tells stories on TV. That was a huge part of my childhood.

It's very hard to be objective about something you're in, especially when you set it up against things that you experienced as a child.

To have someone who's got a strong individual voice that is allowed to be heard is quite increasingly rare. These people need to be cherished.

I love characters who are clever and smart, and you have to run to catch up with. I think there's something very appealing and rather heroic in that.

I think doing different accents is part of the job of acting really. It's something else that I quite enjoy the challenge of, to be honest.

There's a morality... I think there's a moral compass but whether that comes from religion or just from being a good person, and where one starts and the other begins... I'm a good person, I hope. But I'm never as good as I want to be, never as nice as I want to be, never as generous as I want to be.

I always like seeing people transforming themselves in whatever way that might be, and a different accent is part of that.

It has to be said that the bad guys are often more interesting than the good guys because you get to indulge part of your nature that hopefully gets subsumed most of the time. But I just like playing interesting characters, and variety's the spice of that, as it is with life, I suppose.