Pearl Mackie Has Been Told Not To Watch The New Series, But There’s A Good Reason
By Sundi Rose
Pearl Mackie got some strange advice when showrunners told her she shouldn’t go back into the Doctor Who catalogue and watch old episodes.
As a brand new companion, Pearl Mackie was anxious to immerse herself in the Whoniverse. The show wasn’t really on when she was a kid, and the new series aired when she was a teenager, causing her to miss most of the Eccleston and Tennant years.
She told SFX magazine, “I watched some of the new series when it first came out but I was 16, so I was trying to spend as little time at home as possible! So it’s quite new to me as well as being new to Bill.”
She thought she would at least watch episodes with her current co-star, Peter Capaldi. She thought, “I initially planned to watch all of Peter’s stuff with Jenna, so I could see what he was like as a Doctor.”
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But showrunners Stephan Moffat and Brian Minchin had other ideas. They suggested to Mackie, “Don’t watch it, because [Bill] doesn’t know anything about that, and actually what you’re bringing to it is a really nice kind of freshness. What you’re doing is working’”
Mackie’s lack of Doctor Who knowledge falls right in line with how little Bill would know about her Doctor and the preceding mythology. If you think about it, it’s kind of like Method acting. She recalls how it felt when they applauded her lack of experience.
She says, “I think the first time was the day we were shooting the scene where Bill first goes onto it as well. It’s really nice that I’m experiencing that at the same time as her. No acting required, really. I’m just like, ‘Oh, this is cool!’”
Related Story: What if Missy Became the New Doctor after Regeneration?
The tenth season of Doctor Who premieres on BBC1 on Saturday 15th April.