Doctor Who Press Conference 2025

I love Doctor Who and was able to sit in on a press conference with the 15th Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his new companion Miss Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu). What a great time listening to the both of them talk about one of my favorite shows. The transcript below is the questions from a handful of those in attendance and answers from the stars, Enjoy!

Meghan – Welcome everyone to the Doctor Who press conference!

• Sci Fi Vision question – Obviously with a new companion things are going to be quite different. So can you talk about how that relationship develops for both of you. We can start with Ncuti.
  • Ncuti – We are trying to get back to earth which is a deviation from the usual direction of trying to get back to space and tackle things. Belinda has absolutely no interest and is not charmed at all by the Doctor at first. It’s mostly because the Doctor lives a very dangerous life, great, we love the Doctor but he is also very dangerous and we have to take stock of that. And so, the bond is formed in a slightly different form, it takes a little longer, is slower, but is just as deep as any that there has been. Maybe more so, the payoff is that they really value each other’s value systems. She challenges him and calls him out.
  • Verada – They are very much equals and also a team figuring out how to get back home. She has her own life, her own plot/main character journey and when she gets plucked out of that by the Doctor, in some ways, all she wants is to go home. She doesn’t want to be somebody else’s little adventure, she wants to go back to her life.
  • And so she challenges him, she holds him accountable. Eventually they become very aligned and realize they need to work together to be this team to get back to earth and where she wants to be. They have a really strong equal partnership.
• Agents of Fandom question – How does it feel to be the first TARDIS team to be solely people of color and what that means for fans watching the series?
  • Verada – That was something that we acknowledged early on, we were both in the TARDIS and were like “look at us!” It meant a huge amount. I try to not take on the pressure of that because I want to free myself up to be creative, to be playful, and if you put on the pressure of being anything it takes away the joy. You don’t want to feel like you are being scrutinized. Hopefully the payoff is we create something authentic and that feels genuine. Now that we are at that end of filming, I can look back and appreciate how special of an experience it was. I am getting messages from people all around the world saying it means a lot to see a brown person or a team apprised of people of color. It means a lot to me personally and it is great to hear it is the same for other people out there.
• Jerry the Geek – Can you both speak to each other’s qualities that they possess as actors that make you enjoy working with one another and doing scenes with one another.
  • Ncuti – What Verada brings out of the text is so brilliant. The text is very specific and it is tough, it’s complex, we are speaking a lot of sci-fi language, a lot of words that don’t exist and Verada is able to take that language and make it so authentic, so her’s, and I’m like “wow” the way you interpret text is just incredible. Also, just the screen presence, there is authenticity, there is truth. This is so cliché but truth is what you want to communicate when you are acting and I’ve always gotten than 10-fold from you, I don’t know how to articulately say she is just a very very good actor! There is not a way to make that more poetic lol! But a very good actor and you want to work with someone so good, so generous. The chemistry was there from the onset, like instantly so much to bounce, that you are able to create something, your intentions.
  • Verada – For me, Ncuti is just such a brilliant, bright, energy, and your Doctor, just like you, is so dynamic and there is an energy that you bring to the text, to the screen, to the set, that you can’t help but want to join that and match that energy and there is this vibrancy. I keep using that word for how you play the Doctor, it’s just so “vibrant”. It’s such a joy to be around and also as a person, I think you are a brilliant listener, such a good listener. That’s such a good quality in an actor as well because it is so easy to work off of you. There is such a richness in everything you bring to the table, it is like a feast, constantly, when I’m playing opposite of him because there are so many little tidbits to latch onto like when he says something I’m like, “Oo! There is a moment of comedy I can find there” or it comes so easily and naturally for you.
  • Ncuti – I feel the same way about you…gravitas, just gravitas!
• Geek Girl Riot – Words really reverberate throughout this first episode for your characters, for others. Does this continue throughout this season where words are echoing back, especially with your two characters? It’s like they are echoing through time.
  • Ncuti and Verada – I wouldn’t say too much, some are specific to the first episode. But Yes! It is like echoing through time. There are a lot of bread crumbs that all tie in but we can’t talk about it! Lol! That is such a beautiful thing that you picked up on it though.
  • Ncuti – Anywhere in life, time is not linear, it’s like the infinity symbol and that is so present in Doctor Who, Timey Whimey.
  • Verada – It’s like an ebb and flow, things come and go, come and go, and you realize that things are building up to interesting fun things that we can’t say!
• Bleeding Cool – For Ncuti: Do you feel that you are more settled now that this is your second go-around in the TARDIS as the Doctor? Do you feel that you are the one who kind of gets to help Verada used to this kind of crazy surreal world where anything can happen?
• • Ncuti – It was definitely a joy coming back to the second season and getting to explore the character further having him feel more settled in my skin. It’s just the natural process of having done a season and coming back. There was more comfortability, more areas I wanted to explore, sequences of new challenges. Challenges really isn’t the right word, for the character anyway, he was going to grow in different ways because there were new people in his life. Verada hit the ground running from the first day and you were brilliant. I think it is interesting that these two roles in this show have to lean on each other equally as actors playing these roles but also narratively, they are really leaning on each other this season because they both have the challenge of getting back home and the Doctor doesn’t know why he can’t and so they are equally as confused and equally have to lean on each other. I was still getting used to the madness as well, so it was nice having someone who was grounded and generous as you to be able to go through that journey with. It is quite a journey!
• Laughing Place – Verada, we know before you became the companion you were in “Boom” last year. I wanted to ask from an actor point of view, how was it coming back to the show and is there anything you can tease about the show going forward of how the two may relate?
  • Verada – As an actor, it was the best, it was unbelievable! I literally could not believe that I was able to come back. I didn’t know there was a history of actors playing another role and coming back as a companion. Once I got to play a guest lead in “Boom” that was shut and I was very sad about that because I had such a great time. So once I got the call, as an actor, that I could come back as a companion, I literally could not have dreamt of it! I thought, ticked that box, I can’t come back. It meant a lot. I was very very curious to see how Russell would make a nod towards that connection. And I love that! I love that he’s managed to tie into the story and to how and why their relationship was so special because you keep coming across that it’s a genetic link and there’s an importance to why the Doctor keeps coming back to this person.
• Nerds that Geek – What does it mean to you both to be part of a show that inspires hope in a time when people really need it?
  • Ncuti – It feels really great. To be doing something artistically that does that, it is also lovely to have a show that does that, that that is the real message, is hope and upliftment. And to have two leads as well, heroes, that are attuned to non-violence and is quite rare and beautiful. And this encourages learning, and compassion, and curiosity.
  • Verada – I think that is what I like the most about Doctor Who as a franchise, it does exactly what you said. The core themes coming from the Doctor’s point of view are about curiosity, about learning, understanding each other, communicating, connecting with other people. The belief system comes from a place of love, and I am so grateful to be part of a show that that is where the angle is coming from.
  • The world can be a scary place and so it is great being a part of something that feels like it is coming from the right place.
• Pop News – From the past 20 years of the “new Who” do you have a particularly favorite episode or even one from this coming season?
  • Ncuti – “Blink”. Or, maybe because of my religious upbringing, I really love when he faced the devil and the devil took over the Ood, and he brainwashed the Ood. That episode I found so brilliant! Because I feel like it was sort of the start of Russell’s incorporating fantasy. It was like a slight deviation from sci-fi. It felt like the first episode I watched that season that was less sci-fi-ey and more mystical. Either of those two.
  • Verada – An episode from our season. The 2nd episode is set in 1950’s Miami and we become animated very briefly. I just love that! I loved the process of filming, I love that it is a cartoon villain, and it was just so much fun!
• Coalition – In the opening of the show we are dealing with a sense of loss, do you feel that this is something that is shown throughout this season?
  • Ncuti – loss is a big theme with the Doctor. He faces it a lot. He has lost a lot of companions; he is a survivor of a genocide. It speaks to his emotions. We know the Doctor can be emotionally distant at times because he has suffered a lot of loss and there is a lot of trauma there. So yes, that is definitely a theme throughout the season.
• Temple of Geek – Ncuti, you had some amazing looks in season one and this season we see them in the trailer. How involved are you with creating the looks for your Doctor and do you have a favorite? Verada do you also have a favorite from your season?
• • Ncuti – Earlier I was talking about space suits in episode three. I just remembered an outfit when he goes back to Lagos. His hair! He has cornrows, he has an afro, that was really cool because it felt like a very black centric episode that came out in the fashion. So that was really cool, really nice to explore each genre through the fashion.
  • Verada – My favorite was the 1950’s dress. I love that sort of West Side Story, yellow, and I also genuinely love a good space suit! I loved that space suit!

So that’s it Whovians! Keep a look out for the premier of Season 2 of the 15th Doctor airing Saturday April 12, 2025 on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer!

Mary Gillespie

Skewed and Reviewed