Doctor Who‘s latest duo, Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson, first charmed viewers during 2023’s sweet yuletide special, where they delighted audiences with a captivating adventure for the 15th Doctor (Gatwa) and companion Ruby Sunday (Gibson) that involved dangerous Goblins, an adorable foster baby, and singing! Now, we’re getting ready to see a lot more of their onscreen partnership as Disney+ prepares to release its first season of the timey-wimey series on their streaming service on Friday, May 10 (with two episodes). What can we expect? Well, a lot more musical moments, new crying infants, and even some crazy stunt work (it’s definitely been a minute since we’ve seen that on Who!).
Below, Gatwa and Gibson dish on their first audition together, “Space Babies,” this season’s incredible guest stars, and more.
I love the friendship chemistry between you two. Can you tell me a little bit about what your first meeting looked like?
Ncuti Gatwa: Millie came into the room and we were just like, “That’s Ruby.” I think all of us were blown away by her talent and by her charm. Because it was a hard text we both had to audition [with]. [To Gibson] Your [script] was very tricky. It was dense and it was hard stuff to do.
Like the character [of Ruby] has to change a lot and there’s a lot of information for Ruby to take in immediately. And I feel like the choices that you made were just so sharp and on it and intelligent. And then also you were really funny with it and able to handle like, weighty depth, which is very hard to do. It was like, she’s brilliant. And for me, I was like, “Now the final piece of the puzzle of the Doctor is complete. I now get where I want to take the character.”
Millie Gibson: I was the same. I walked in with a picture in my head on how to do Ruby. And then as soon as [Gatwa] started talking, a new piece of me came out and I was like, “Oh yeah.” And then they just fit.
And they fit together so well. Their first adventure involved saving a foster baby from goblins…and now we’re doing babies in space?
Gibson: Who doesn’t love babies?
Can you tease what goes down in “Space Babies”?
Gibson: So it picks up where we left off in the Christmas episode of Ruby stepping into the TARDIS and it’s her reaction to that, you know, mind-blowing, life-changing TARDIS. And then we go on our first adventure and we land in, of course, a space baby ship. Like one does.
Gatwa: Like one does.
Gibson: And then we [find] the captain of the ship is an actual baby.
Gatwa: So yeah, as you can see, it’s a totally normal episode. They land on like a baby farm where babies are being grown and face off with a big, scary, old bogeyman. The episode is just a nice bridge in capturing [both] where the show has been and the audiences that it’s had, and taking them into this new era that we’re about to go on.
Now you mention the TARDIS, and of course the 15th Doctor has his own new, special TARDIS with a jukebox. Are you going to get a lot of mileage out of that particular element?
Gatwa: There’s a lot of scenes we did with the jukebox throughout the series.
Gibson: I love that jukebox. I kept, like, accidentally playing it, because it actually works.
Gatwa: If you press a certain combination, songs will come on. Me and Millie were mayhem.
Gibson: The props team covered them up with different songs. So the one, the button you press wouldn’t be the song that came out, which we soon discovered.
What was your favorite jukebox song to play?
Gibson: Oh my God. Wasn’t there a Britney one on there?
Gatwa: I think there was a Britney. It was a [“Baby One More Time”].
Oh, that’s great. Now, of course this show is fun and lighthearted, but it’s never without its darker moments. Ncuti, how did you go about approaching your Doctor’s mental state? He seems pretty stable, all things considered.
Gatwa: I think certainly this incarnation still has that insatiable curiosity that all the Doctors have and that sense of adventure and that, to me, really helped with the narrative of this Doctor having moved on from something. He’s kind of been born off of the fatigue that No. 14 was carrying around for those three specials. There was something weighing him down. And so, I think that’s [part of] this new lore that Russell [showrunner Russell T. Davies] has introduced whereby Time Lords can regenerate. It’s another self-preservation thing that the Time Lords can now do.
And so, he’s freer. However, I will say that he’s certainly not always stable. But he is a lot more willing to enjoy the lightness that comes along with the dark, I would say.
We haven’t seen that in a while with the Doctor, so that’s nice. And of course, Ruby is going to be going through so much as well. Where is her mind at when we see her in these upcoming episodes, having just jumped into their spaceship with a strange alien? She left at Christmas!
Gibson: Yeah, I don’t think her mom’s thrilled, as any mom would be. But Ruby’s just craving adventure. She [also] has such a beautiful level of innocence about her, which is brought round by the Doctor’s adventure that he’s already given her with the goblins. I think what’s so great about Ruby is it wasn’t the fact that it’s like, you know, goblins on the ladder. It’s the fact that they’re taking her baby away that she’s been taking care of. That’s the most important thing in her mind. She’s very selfless and pure and courageous and just positive. There’s a certain new level of humanity in the Doctor that Ruby sort of captures, too, and unlocks in him because, you know, someone needs to tell the Doctor it’s okay to let your feelings out, even if you are an alien.
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I mean, the Doctor has two hearts, after all. And Doctor Who is an adventure series, so there’s always going to be a physically-demanding component. How much stunt work do you each get to do yourselves? Are you going up on the ropes?
Gatwa: Oh, yes. It’s once a week. You’re up on a wire. You’re up on a rope. You’re dangling from a crane.
Gibson: With this job, you just have to hope for the best. They didn’t ask me in the audition if I could sing. I was singing in the first episode. They didn’t ask me if I was scared of heights. I was dangling from a ladder.
Gatwa: They throw you in at the deep end and see whether you sink or swim. Physically, it is a beast. It is a beast of a job. But it’s exciting to be pushed physically, mentally and emotionally in a role. That’s all you want as an actor.
Without spoiling anything, what would you say is the craziest stunt that you had to do for these upcoming episodes?
Gatwa: “Space Babies.” There’s a stunt. The Doctor’s in a room where all the oxygen gets sucked out and he’s in space, so he has to slam from one wall to the other. For that stunt, they had to tie me to the roof of the studio, which is like an old hangar, and then drop me at speed to the section of the ground.
Gibson: I have one from the ’60s episode. It’s not as magnificent as Ncuti’s, but I’m hoisted up in the air and I’ve got to be entranced. I’m almost hypnotized and I’m staring at one point at the building like an angel. And yeah, it just took a lot of core strength. I was up there a while, OK? I was up there for a while.
Gatwa: And then you dropped down from it.
Gibson: Oh my god. And then I dropped down from it, and Ncuti catches me, but that wasn’t us really, but Jess, my stunt double, got a busted lip from that. These stunt doubles are made of steel.
Gatwa: Shoutout to all the stunt people in the world.
So we know there’s a ’60s episode coming up. There’s also a Regency-era episode with Broadway star Jonathan Groff. What are you both most excited for people to see in these first few hours?
Gatwa: The visuals. Those two episodes are beautiful.
Gibson: I mean, it’s Regency-era and the ’60s. It’s obviously going to look gorgeous. It’s such beautiful eras to travel back into. I’m glad we went there. Jinkx Monsoon‘s performance [in the season’s second episode, “The Devil’s Chord”] was just insane. She’s such a skilled performer. Seeing all that theatrical craft in that space was incredible. And she plays a villain that we have no weapon in our arsenal against.
Gatwa: She is huge. It was like, “You know what, Jinkx? This episode is yours. Nobody will remember us here. You have this one.” Jonathan also was just a lot of fun.
Gibson: Oh my gosh, he’s beautiful in it.
Gatwa: I think you see an element in Doctor Who that we’ve not seen in a little while [with that episode].
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I’ve heard the show might be staying away from the Cybermen and the Daleks and those iconic Who villains for a while, but is there a classic baddie that you would love to see your characters go up against?
Gibson: I would love to [face] a Weeping Angel. Definitely. But I love the Daleks as well.
Gatwa: I hope that’s not true. I want to face a Dalek. What the hell is the point in being Doctor Who if I’m not going to fight a Dalek? I’d better face a Dalek. Bloody hell! [Laughs]
Doctor Who, Season 1 Premiere (two episodes), Friday, May 10, 7/6c, Disney+