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When the opportunity to travel in time and space just isn't enough.
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00:00Due to Doctor Who's very nature of traveling anywhere in time and space, different stories
00:05and locations each week, it has had an ever-expanding roster of guest stars over the past 58 years.
00:12Some actors take a role on the show out of love and nostalgia. Others, like John Simm,
00:16take the role so that their children will actually be able to watch their parents work
00:20without fear of bad language or sexy scenes. Not everyone holds the show in such esteem,
00:26however, and there have been a fair few guest actors who aren't overly thrilled to take part
00:31in the show. And even those that are sometimes have particularly strange requests in order for
00:36them to get into character as all manner of alien weirdos, historical figures, and intergalactic
00:42tyrants. This list collects a range of actors who've appeared in the show over the past five decades,
00:48charting their unusual requests, vanity, eccentric motives, and incredibly demanding performances.
00:54With that in mind, I'm Ellie with Who Culture, and this is 10 Most Unusual Demands Made by Doctor
00:59Who Guest Stars.
01:01Number 10. Vi Delmar Negotiated a Separate Contract for Her Teeth in The Pirate Planet
01:06Vi Delmar was an English character actor who'd pop up in everything, from Carry On Cowboy to
01:13Dr. Finley's Casebook. Born in 1902, Delmar was in her mid-70s when she was cast as the aged queen,
01:19Xanaxia, in the closing two parts of Douglas Adams' Doctor Who debut, The Pirate Planet.
01:25Queen Xanaxia, of course, was the true villain of the story. In an attempt to remain youthful,
01:31she plunders the galaxy for rare minerals to power the time down that sustains her.
01:35Trapped in the final few moments of her life, she is defeated by the Doctor, who warns her that
01:40there's not enough energy in the world to sustain her existence forever.
01:44In order to better portray this wise and old queen, Delmar was asked to remove her false teeth
01:49by director Pennant Roberts. She refused to do so, and ended up negotiating an extra fee
01:55to appear on screen without her falses in. According to IMDb, this was her final on-screen
02:00credit as an actor, but Delmar lived on until 1994. The fate of her false teeth is unknown.
02:07Number 9. Nicholas Briggs Disagreed With How the Daleks Were Written in Doomsday
02:12Nicholas Briggs is so entwined with the Daleks now that a whole nation responded to the executioner's
02:18line, I am not Nick, with, yes you are. On top of this, he's the voice of the Cybermen,
02:24the Jadoon, the Zygons, Skaldak the Ice Warrior, not to mention his extensive work with Big Finish.
02:30Briggs is one of the few figures to have been with Doctor Who since 2005. He's the monster guy,
02:35he has a ring modulator, he's the Dalek expert. So much so that during filming of the series 2
02:42finale Doomsday, he disagreed with how the dialogue was written. Reading the script,
02:47Briggs felt that Dalek's sex sounded like he was jarringly in conversation with himself,
02:52and that the lines would be better split between sex and another Dalek. Director Graham Harper agreed,
02:57and they sought permission to change the script as written. Is Briggs paid by the Dalek,
03:01or just a flat rate for voice work? If the former, then this was a sneaky little move for some extra cash,
03:07but it's more than likely to be the latter, and he just really knows his Daleks.
03:11Number 8. John Kane's method acting nearly barred him from filming in Planet of the Spiders.
03:17John Kane's performance as Tommy in 1974's Planet of the Spiders is a bit of its time. It's not a
03:24particularly nuanced portrayal of a character with learning difficulties, though the script does have
03:28its heart in the right place. When Sarah exclaims,
03:31you're normal. After his miraculous interaction with the Great Crystal, Tommy simply replies,
03:36I hope not. Kane was predominantly a theatre actor at the time of filming,
03:41and would get into character on his way to the first day of shooting. Adopting Tommy's voice,
03:46he asked the taxi driver to take him to where they made the television programmes,
03:51because he was on his way to meet his friend Doctor Who. On arriving at TV Centre,
03:55the taxi driver alerted a security guard who told Kane that the TARDIS had left,
04:00and Doctor Who would wave to him next time he was on telly. Kane turned down the driver's offer of a
04:04lift back home, and eventually had to remonstrate with the guard to be allowed inside to start
04:09filming. Number 7. Simon Callow insisted Dickens be treated with respect in The Unquiet Dead.
04:16Actors will sometimes avoid roles that may damage their reputation, often by being connected with work
04:22that doesn't appear worthy of their talents. Simon Callow is slightly different, and was reticent to
04:27appear in The Unquiet Dead, because he was fearful that it would sully the reputation of Charles
04:31Dickens. Having written about the author and having played him in a one-man show, Callow is a proper
04:37Dickens scholar, and was uncomfortable with the idea of him being a guest in a Doctor Who story.
04:42His fears were rooted in the idea that the author is often deployed as a cheap way to add some
04:47Victorian character to a ropey old period piece. He'd clearly seen what Doctor Who did with HG
04:52Wells in Timelash, so Callow was adamant that the script be respectful to the Dickens' legacy.
04:58He was therefore pleasantly surprised when he realised that Gatiss was almost as big a Dickens
05:02fan as he was. Callow was drawn to the script that saw the author worry about his legacy and his value
05:08as he nears the end of his life. It's one of the great Doctor Who performances, and was perfect to
05:14relaunch the series' historical adventures. Number 6. Kate O'Mara swapped Hollywood's sunshine for a damp
05:20gravel pit for Time and the Rani. Kate O'Mara always brought a bit of Hollywood glamour to Doctor
05:25Who in the 1980s. She only appeared twice, but the character was such a hit with fans that any time
05:31a big-name female actor is cast as a villain, she's immediately rumoured to be the Rani.
05:36Keely Hawes and Michelle Gomez were certainly speculated to be new incarnations of the villainous
05:41Time Lady. To date, she's not made a return, perhaps due to how Kate O'Mara made the role her own.
05:46Indeed, O'Mara was very keen to return to the role for 1987's Time and the Rani, in spite of her
05:53success in the USA in popular soap Dynasty. She also had a few requests for executive producer
05:59John Nathan-Turner when she wrote to him,
06:01I can't stand the eternal sunshine. You've got to help me. I want to be in a gravel pit somewhere
06:07in the pissing rain, changing in a caravan in front of 20 nosy crew members. Whilst the hours and
06:12hours of location footage on the new Blu-rays don't dwell on her changing room arrangements,
06:17she certainly gets her wish for a soaking wet gravel pit.
06:20Number 5. Paul Darrow was out for revenge against Colin Baker in Time Lash.
06:26Actors take on roles for all manner of reasons. For Paul Darrow, he accepted the role as Tekka
06:31in Time Lash purely out of a thirst for revenge. Back in 1980, Colin Baker had made a scene-stealing
06:38appearance as the villainous Baben the Butcher in the Blake 7 episode City at the Edge of the World.
06:44Darrow felt that Baker's bombastic performance upstaged him on his own show. He's not wrong,
06:49it's a role that lives long in the memory and has now spawned a big Finnish spin-off.
06:53Darrow decided to return the favour five years later on the set of Time Lash. Nathan-Turner had
06:59cast him to play the role of the collaborator Malen Tekka in the same cool anti-heroic manner that he
07:04played Avon. Darrow declined this offer and instead decided to perform the part as if he
07:09was Shakespeare's Richard III, hump and all. Director Pennant Roberts declined the hump,
07:14but Darrow proceeded to exaggerate his performance in what is one of the most memorable Doctor Who
07:18guest turns. And at least Colin Baker got some good convention stories out of it.
07:23After all, it could have been worse. Stephen Berkhoff was also in contention for the role of Tekka,
07:28but much more about him later.
07:29Number 4. Anthony Ainley's bald cap mishap in Time Flight
07:34If you believe Tom Baker, and thousands wouldn't, then master actor Anthony Ainley was bald as a
07:39kneecap. The master's jet black hair was, unsurprisingly, a wig. Anecdotally, he was
07:45very sensitive about his baldness and would insist on his makeup being done in private.
07:50Ainley's sensitivity over his baldness reached ludicrous heights during the production of 1982's
07:55Time Flight. For reasons that are never made clear, the master is disguised as the mystical
08:00Khalid, a bald racist stereotype for the benefit of seemingly nobody. Of course, to wear the heavy
08:06latex and makeup used to cover up his appearance, Ainley would have to remove the wig. No deal.
08:11He insisted that the makeup artist fit the bald cap over his luxurious black wig. Christopher Lee was
08:17similar. He refused to remove his wig for his role as Mycroft Holmes in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes,
08:23until he was eventually convinced to by the director Billy Wilder. Ron Jones, the director of the much
08:28derided Time Flight, had no such luck with Ainley, despite warning of the unbearable heat he'd have
08:34to deal with. Number 3. Anton Differing preferred tennis to Doctor Who in Silver Nemesis
08:40Anton Differing was a prolific German character actor who had fled Germany in 1939 to live and work
08:46in Canada, the US, and Britain. Often playing Nazis in the movies following the end of the war,
08:52he appeared in genre classics like Where Eagles Dare, and also starred in Jerry Lewis's infamous
08:57little-seen concentration camp clown film The Day the Clown Cried. By the late 80s,
09:02Differing was in his 70s and very much still working. Doctor Who's 25th anniversary special
09:08Silver Nemesis centred on a battle between the Cybermen, a Nazi and his private militia,
09:13and two Elizabethans to obtain the mythical Nemesis statue. It's up to the Doctor and Ace to stop them.
09:19And who did the Doctor Who production team have in mind for the aging Nazi? Why, Anton Differing,
09:24of course! Differing was completely unaware of Doctor Who, and had never seen an episode.
09:29He took the role on, though, not because he was a late convert to the magic of the show,
09:33but because the shooting dates coincided with Wimbledon, and he could watch the matches between
09:37shoots from his hotel room. Number 2. Davros smokes inside a paper bag in Genesis of the Daleks.
09:44No disrespect to those who came after him, but Michael Wisher was the definitive Davros.
09:49Evil doesn't shout, it whispers, he famously noted, and it's this hissing menace that brings
09:55the creator of the Daleks so chillingly to life. A eugenicist who is absolutely convinced of the
10:00purity of his own race above all else. The darkness of Davros and Terry Nation's inspiration from the
10:07dark subject matter of the Holocaust is at odds with the frankly crazy way that Wisher prepared for the
10:13role. Knowing that he would be encased inside a rubber mask to play the part, he decided to
10:18rehearse his lines whilst wearing a paper bag on his head. The idea was that the bag would prepare
10:22him for the restrictive experience of wearing the Davros mask. Wisher was also a prolific chain
10:27smoker, and cut two air holes in the top of the bag to allow him to smoke whilst wearing the very
10:33flammable paper bag. Something which would never in a million years happen in an age of health and
10:39safety legislation. When it came to playing Davros on set, Wisher had a peculiar costume decision.
10:44Beneath the black leather tunic, he wore a kilt and knee pads in order to feel more comfortable
10:48in the Dalek shirt.
10:50Number 1. Stephen Berkhoff's never-to-be-repeated role as the Chakri in The Power of Three.
10:56In an interview with SFX magazine, The Power of Three director Douglas MacKinnon rather diplomatically
11:02stated that you could ask anyone on the cast or crew and they'll agree that his participation
11:07was extraordinary. As the years have passed, some details have come out in various fan circles
11:13that suggest this is code for he was an absolute nightmare to work with. Allegedly, he refused to
11:19act, delivered lines in bizarre ways, and threw numerous tantrums. The day's shooting with
11:23Berkhoff was virtually unusable, and Chris Chibnall had to hastily rewrite dialogue to work
11:28with what they could salvage. The Chakri was never originally intended to be a hologram,
11:33but Berkhoff's stock-still performance necessitated such a rewrite. In an interview a few years
11:38later, Berkhoff complained about being worked to death and spending the majority of his 15 hours
11:44in the makeup chair. Perhaps by the time he'd been made up as the Chakri, he was ready to go home.
11:48It's no excuse for unprofessional behaviour, though. The biggest laugh is that MacKinnon had worked
11:52with Berkhoff before. One can only imagine how he'd have behaved with an unfamiliar director.
11:57And that concludes our list of the most unusual demands made by Doctor Who guest stars.
12:03If you can think of any others that weren't mentioned in this video, then comment them
12:06below, and while you're there, like and subscribe, and tap that notification bell. Don't forget
12:11to head over to Twitter to follow us there. I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words
12:15of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.
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