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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 will be shown in 2009.
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 (video)
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 hopes to return as Hamlet after Christmas.
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 1939. 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.
Written by Lauren of David Tennant
Fan. Please credit if you use it on your websites.
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