First black ‘Doctor Who’: Eleventh Doctor could have been Chiwetel Ejiofor, not Matt Smith

“Doctor Who” could have had its first black Time Lord, according to outgoing showrunner Steven Moffat. The Eleventh Doctor could have been “12 Years a Slave” star Chiwetel Ejiofor instead of Matt Smith, it was revealed.

Every time the Gallifreyan Time Lord is about to regenerate, fans are hoping the next actor to take on the role would be a woman or a person of colour. There hasn’t been a female Doctor yet, but Whovians came very close to having the first black Doctor.

In the latest issue of Doctor Who magazine, Moffat revealed that the coveted role was offered to an unnamed black actor before. But “for various reasons, it didn’t work out.”

That unnamed actor turned out to be Ejiofor, according to Radio Times. The 38-year-old was apparently offered the role of the Eleventh Doctor by the BBC. However, he was not able to agree terms with the network. As it happened, Smith was eventually offered the role, becoming the youngest actor to land the role at 26 years old in 2010.

Ejiofor, according to the site, was not offered the role again after Smith left. Peter Capaldi, who succeeded Smith, currently holds the role of The Doctor.

Bestselling author Neil Gaiman, who had written a couple of episodes of “Doctor Who,” knew the identity of the actor who was offered the part. He wrote on his blog three years ago that he had “absolutely” no doubt that a person of colour would be cast as the Doctor in the future.

“I know one black actor who was already offered the part of the Doctor, and who turned it down. You can ask [who it is], but seeing that it was something I was told in confidence by the actor in question, you won’t get an answer,” he wrote (via Radio Times).

But if he is asked now, he does not want to see Ejiofor as the next Doctor, saying he would prefer to have the role filled by a lesser known actor.

“But I like to see The Doctor as The Doctor, and an actor who doesn’t bring baggage is a grand sort of thing. A star waiting to happen. So I don’t want to see Helen Mirren or Sir Ian McKellen or Chiwetel Ejiofor, or any of the famous names people are suggesting,” he wrote.

“I want to see The Doctor. I want to be taken by surprise. I want to squint at a photo of the person online and go, ‘but how can that be The Doctor?’ Then I want to be amazingly, delightedly, completely proven wrong, and, six episodes in, I want to wonder how I could have been so blind. Because this is the Doctor. Of course it is.”

Capaldi will reprise his role as the Twelfth Doctor with new companion Bill, to be played by Pearl Mackie, in the upcoming 10^th series of the show. Mackie is the second person of colour who nabbed the role of the Doctor’s main companion in the new era since series 3’s Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman).

Production for the next series will begin in two weeks, Capaldi revealed at the Dallas Comic-Con on Saturday.

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