The Doctor (Doctor Who)
Jodie Whittaker took over the role as the Thirteenth Doctor in the 2017 Christmas special. In addition to the above-listed actors, others have played versions of the Doctor for the duration of particular storylines.
Notably, John Hurt guest starred as the War Doctor in the closing moments of the 2013 episode "The Name of the Doctor", the webcast "The Night of the Doctor" and the 50th Anniversary episode "The Day of the Doctor". The War Doctor is an incarnation existing between those of McGann and Eccleston. Hurt was never the programme's lead actor; his Doctor was retroactively inserted into continuity for the programme's 50th anniversary, and was written so as not to disturb the ordinal naming of the established Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. In the 1986 serial "The Trial of a Time Lord", Michael Jayston played the Valeyard, an amalgamation of the Doctor's darker sides from between his twelfth and final incarnations.
Rose (Doctor Who episode)
It was announced in March 2004 that Christopher Eccleston would be playing the Doctor. Jane Tranter, BBC Controller of Drama Commissioning, stated that casting an actor of Eccleston's reputation signaled "our intention to take "Doctor Who" into the 21st century, as well as retaining its core traditional values — to be surprising, edgy and eccentric." Eccleston is the ninth actor to play the Doctor since the programme started in 1963. New actors are able to take over the role through a plot device of regeneration, introduced in 1966, in which the character of the Doctor changes body and identity. Russell T Davies decided to begin the revived series with a new Doctor rather than show the regeneration, as he believed it was "madness" to start with someone and then change him before the audience could build a relationship with him. Davies wanted to initially approach the revival as a "new programme". Eccleston's character is more "down-to-earth" than previous Doctors; Davies referred to him as "stripped down", while still having "fun and humour". Eccleston's costume of a battered leather jacket was in Davies' original pitch, but the clothing also went with Eccleston's desire not to have clothes dominating his time on the show. The Ninth Doctor's clothes do not dominate him, but rather create a simple silhouette and an "action man" vibe.