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David Tennant > Biography > Career > Facts > Fan Address > Reviews > Quotes > Style Guide > Interviews

David John McDonald was born on 18th April 1971 in Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland, UK. The son of a minister of the Church of Scotland, David Tennant recognized his desire to become an actor at the age of three or four.

David changed his surname to Tennant because another actor had the same surname. He decided on Tennant after looking in 'Smash hits' magazine and seeing Neil Tennant of the Pet shop boys.

David attended the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and later developed his career in theatre, appearing several times with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He appeared in many productions with the Royal Shakespeare company including Touchstone in As You Like It, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors and Captain Jack Absolute in The Rivals.

Already a well known theatre performer with the Royal Shakespeare Company, he further improved his career by breaking into the television and later the film industry, appearing in Casanova (as Giacomo Casanova), Blackpool (as DI Peter Carlise), Secret smile (as Brendan Block) as well as a number of other TV shows before landing the role of the Doctor in the hit TV series Doctor Who in 2005. He made his first appearance as The Doctor in series 1's 'The Parting of Ways'. David became a huge success playing The Doctor and has been voted the best Doctor of all time.

After the second series of Doctor Who aired on the BBC we were all treated to seeing David appear in a heartfelt drama Recovery. He played a man called Alan who was knocked over and suffered brain damage. As part of the research for the role David went to Headway the brain injury association. He is now a patron of Headway.

Movie roles in the film industry include appearing in the fourth installment of Harry Potter, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire starring as Bartemius (Barty) Crouch Jr, Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things as Ginger Littlejohn and starring alongside Johnny Depp in LA Without A Map.

In November 2007 David appeared in Learners, which is a comedy written by Jessica Hynes, who also co-stars. Jessica Hynes also made an appearance opposite David in the Doctor Who 2 parter 'The Family of Blood' and 'Human Nature'. His character in Learners is Chris the Driving Instructor, who is a christian. David also appeared in Ricky Gervais's comedy show Extras in a Christmas special acting as himself.A Doctor Who Christmas special aired on Christmas Day starring alongside Kylie Minogue in Voyage of the Damned.

Series 4 of Doctor Who has completed with Catherine Tate as The Doctor's companion and David will be only partaking in the Doctor Who specials (5) one Christmas 2008 entitled The Next Doctor with David Morrisey and the other 4 specials (The Planet of the Dead shown at Easter, The Waters of Mars in November and The End of Time 2 part special shown at Christmas/New Year) in 2009/10. This is due to David being back on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Hamlet and Love Labour's Lost. Hamlet sold out very quickly and many tickets appeared on ebay at very high prices. It was then announced that David will take Hamlet to London West End Stage in December 2008 to January 2009 at the Novello theatre.

During the National Television Awards 2008 David won Best actor again for his role as The Doctor. He couldn't appear as he was appearing in Hamlet in Stratford and spoke during the interval. During this he announced he would be hanging up his sonic screwdriver after the 2009 specials.

David had to pull out of the Hamlet London shows before Christmas due to back problems, which has led to him having surgery to fix a slipped disc. Ed Bennett his understudy took over the role of Hamlet to much praise and positive reviews. David returned as Hamlet after Christmas. Hamlet has been recently made for DVD/TV for the Rsc and will be releasing it around January 2010. It will be shown on Boxing Day in the UK.

Other projects David was involved in during 2008 included HBO's Einstein and Eddington, David plays Sir Arthur Eddington alongside Andy Serkis's Einstein. This aired in November 2008 on BBC 2 and will air in the new year on HBO in the States.

David has already filmed a new film directed by Stephen Poliakoff entitled Glorious 39. David plays Hector a family friend. This production has a star studded cast including Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, and Christopher Lee. The film is set during the second world war and is expected to be released in 2009. David has recently completed work on another film St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold, playing a villian named Lord Pomfrey. This is set to be released in 18th December 2009 in the UK. David is currently filming a US pilot called Rex is Not Your Lawyer, he plays Rex Alexander a lawyer that suffers from panic attacks and therefore his clients represent themselves after him coaching them. Another film David will be gin filming at the beginning of 2010 is Burke and Hare alongside Simon Pegg playing the grave robber William Hare.

Written by Lauren of David Tennant Fan. Please credit if you use it on your websites.

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