Creator / Ncuti Gatwa

Actors are great. The best, like, wow.

"As an actor, you have good spells and bad spells."

Mizero Ncuti Gatwa^note  Pronounced "SHOO-tee GAT-wah" (born 15 October 1992) is a Rwandan-Scottish actor^note he was born in Rwanda and grew up in Scotland. He got his big break with the role of Eric Effiong in Sex Education in 2019, and is currently playing the Fifteenth Doctor in Doctor Who.

Gatwa's tenure as the Doctor marks a bunch of firsts: he is the first Black male actor to be cast in the role^note discounting Colin Salmon, whose role as Doctor Moon was only confirmed to be an incarnation of the Doctor by Word of God rather than being stated in the series itself, the first Black actor to play a mainline incarnation of the Doctor^note Jo Martin played an incarnation whose placement in the Doctor's timeline is unknown as of this writing, being known only as the "Fugitive Doctor", but as a guest character rather than as a regular, and the first to be born outside the UK. Cast at the age of 29, he is tied with Peter Davison for the position of second-youngest actor to play the Doctor (the youngest being Matt Smith, who was cast at 26) — and is the first Doctor actor to be born after the Classic Series' cancellation in 1989. He is also the first openly queer actor to play the role.

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Film roles

• Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans (2019) as Timidius
• The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021) as Nick
• Barbie (2023) as Tourist Ken

Television roles

• Sex Education (2019-2023) as Eric Effiong
• Doctor Who (2023-present) as the Fifteenth Doctor
  • An Adventure in Space and Time (2023) As Himself^note 2023 BBC Four airing; replacing Matt Smith
• Masters of the Air (TBA) as 2cd Lt. Robert Daniels

Video game roles

• GRID Legends (2022) as Valentin Manzi

Tropes relating to him and his career:

• Awesome, Dear Boy: His reaction to being cast as the Doctor: to him, Doctor Who's appeal lies in giving voice and escapism to outliers, misfits and those who feel marginalised.
• Dawson Casting: He was in his mid twenties when cast as the teenage Eric in Sex Education.
• Fake Nationality: The Scottish-Rwandan Gatwa as the English-Nigerian Eric.
• Large Ham:
  • As Eric. He seems to be quite lively and boisterous in real life too.
  • If his first scene as the 15th Doctor goes, this could also be the case: "Someone tell me what the HELL is going on here?!"
• Promoted Fanboy: He's a fan of Doctor Who, especially David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, even citing him as the reason he got into acting. Fittingly, his Passing the Torch moment involves Tennant himself.
  "It feels like it’s come full circle – because David was my Doctor and such a great inspiration to me as an actor. I would have been 13 – a pivotal time. And firstly, he’s Scottish. Plus he was so charismatic and fun. I mean all the Doctors have been fun, all the way back. Well, I don’t know if you can say that about William Hartnell. Maybe he wasn’t fun. But David had such a Scottish almost feral-ness to him, which is what I liked. I felt an affinity to that. So for him, of all people, to be handing the baton over – it just feels really surreal."
• Meme Acknowledgement: His appearance on The Graham Norton Show featured him discussing a meme edit of a Covid poster based around Eric's Character Catchphrase ("Wash your hands, you dirty pig!").
• Star-Making Role: Eric Effiong in Sex Education. Doctor Who will definitely count too.
• What Could Have Been: He was the last person to audition for the role of the Fifteenth Doctor. Showrunner Russell T Davies has said that he had almost settled on another actor before Gatwa tried out for the part.

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