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Ncuti Gatwa brings a lot of new attributes to the Doctor as the latest actor to inhabit the title role of the long running series Doctor Who, not least of which being his effortless charm and undeniable sense of style. He is also, as was pointed out more than once during the Doctor Who panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2024, one of the more emotionally open Doctors that the show has ever seen… and that turns out to be a very intentional choice on his part.

“He’s a little bit emotional, I don’t know if you’ve noticed. I wanted him to feel everything, because he gets to do everything,” Gatwa told the Hall H crowd during the Friday morning panel. When asked by a fan about how emotional his performance has been so far, he explained, “The Doctor has had so much loss and joy, and every experience lived to the fullest extent. I can’t get over the fact that he has two hearts. He feels things very deeply.”

Mention was made of the fact that he’s one of the first Doctors to cry on the series, and Gatwa said, “When your best friend rolls down a cliff and is dead, you’re going to shed a couple of tears. It wasn’t something that we specifically tried to bring to the role, it just kind of happened.”

While the crying might have not been planned, Gatwa’s intent to have his Doctor be more emotionally intelligent was certainly intentional. “It’s nice to have a hero that feels, and a man that’s not afraid to be in touch with his emotions,” Gatwa said.

Doctor Who returns to BBC iPlayer and Disney+ this Christmas for a special episode, with a new season following in 2025.

Get a fuller San Diego Comic-Con experience with a full rundown of our SDCC 2024 stories, as well as all the big SDCC 2024 news, how to make the most out of San Diego Comic-Con, and the real burning question: how much does it actually cost to go to SDCC?