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Those Doctor Who actors and extras whose talents broke through our perception filters!
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00:00Hello everyone, Ellie here, and we're thrilled to say that this video is sponsored by Magic the Gathering, Doctor Who, but more on that later.
00:08It takes true talent, good looks, or clumsy footing to make a lasting impression on Doctor Who as a minor background character.
00:15The vast majority are forgotten about as quickly as they appeared, but some have gone on to leave a lasting mark in the Hooniverse Hall of Fame, or even the entertainment industry as a whole.
00:25I'm Ellie with Who Culture here with 10 Doctor Who background actors who got themselves noticed.
00:31Number 10, Naomi Aki.
00:33Naomi Aki is a Doctor Who actor so deeply embedded in the background that you'd be forgiven for forgetting she appeared in the show.
00:40She played the girlfriend of Riggsie and the mother of his child in a brief phone call in Face the Raven, and also appeared in a deleted scene from that same episode.
00:49Set after Clara's heart-wrenching death, the scene shows her comforting a distraught Riggsie for whom the Impossible Girls sacrificed her life.
00:56Despite her only on-screen appearance being excised from the finished edit, Naomi Aki has gone on to great things.
01:03She recently received acclaim for her performance as Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody, and also played Lando Calrissian's potential daughter in Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker.
01:12And she'll also soon be seen opposite Robert Pattinson in Oscar-winner Bong Joon-ho's Mickey 17.
01:18Doctor Who's loss is very much Hollywood's gain.
01:22Number 9, The Skipping Sontaran.
01:24Okay, sure, it's hard to be caked underneath heavy layers of prosthetics, but spare a thought for those minor Doctor Who actors who don't even get that luxury.
01:33Actors like the poor sod who had to put on a Sontaran helmet and blindly chase Tom Baker around a Victorian swimming pool.
01:39The Invasion of Time has one of classic Doctor Who's greatest cliffhangers, as the Force Doctor defeats the tinfoil Vardans, only to realise that he's left the door wide open for the Sontarans to invade Gallifrey.
01:51Sadly, it's all downhill from there, as the story quickly descends into a Scooby-Doo chase through the TARDIS, which looks suspiciously like an old Victorian hospital.
01:58There is a standout moment, however, when one of the Sontarans chases the Doctor, crashes through a sun lounger, and stumbles over a step, only for Tom Baker to lob another sun lounger at him, sending him clattering dangerously close to the edge of the pool.
02:13As one of Doctor Who's most infamous bloopers that was kept in the final edit, it never fails to raise a big laugh, and has given this particular Sontaran his own special place in the show's history.
02:24Number 8, Margaret John.
02:26Margaret John first appeared as the no-nonsense Meghan Jones in Fury from the Deep, sent to investigate the strange goings-on at the refinery.
02:3538 years later, she returned to the world of Doctor Who in the minor but memorable role of faceless Grandma Connolly in The Idiot's Lantern.
02:43John had a long and varied career across the decades, having appeared in the likes of Game of Thrones and Run Fat Boy Run before her death in 2011.
02:51And while she's probably best known for playing the foul-mouthed Doris in Gavin and Stacey, it's her minor role as Grandma Connolly that could be her lasting legacy.
03:00Uh, well, I beg to differ actually, because as soon as I just saw the photo of her, do you know what came to my mind?
03:06Where's the salad? Where's the salad?
03:08There's your salad, now leave me alone!
03:11Her face is barely seen in the episode, on account of it being sucked into the telly by the wire.
03:16However, the most remarkable thing about faceless Grandma Connolly is that she actually got her own action figure, complete with swappable heads.
03:23I think I actually owned that at one point.
03:25Not every background actor gets their own action figure, so it's pretty remarkable, if unconventional, as a tribute to Margaret John's amazing career.
03:34Number 7. Graham Cole
03:36Graham Cole played all manner of Doctor Who monsters in the early 1980s.
03:40He played a Marshman in Full Circle, the Melkor in The Keeper of Traken, and a Cyberman in The Five Doctors.
03:46He has blink-and-your-missed appearances out of costume, too.
03:49However, it was in another iconic British series that Cole would ultimately make a name for himself, when he was cast as PC Tony Stamp in The Bill.
03:58The character was one of the longest-serving cast members in the beloved police soap, which ran for over 2,000 episodes between 1983 and 2010.
04:06These impressive credits have allowed Cole to brush shoulders with royalty, and to establish himself as an iconic figure in his own right.
04:13Not bad for a guy who started out beneath layers of prosthetics as Chief Marshman opposite Tom Baker, eh?
04:18As we mentioned earlier, this video is brought to you in partnership with Magic the Gathering Doctor Who, every Doctor, any dimension.
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05:16Number 6. Terry Walsh
05:20Terry Walsh was John Pertwee and Tom Baker's stuntman for some of the more involved sequences in their Doctor Who eras.
05:27As well as blending into the background as a stunt performer and fight arranger, Walsh also played a handful of usually ill-fated characters,
05:35like the tumbling Auton from Terror of the Autons.
05:38However, it's not these roles that got Terry Walsh noticed during his time on Doctor Who.
05:42Nor was it the time he had to step in for Tom Baker when the star broke his collarbone on the Sontaran experiment.
05:48It was during the climactic fight scene of The Monster of Peladon Part 4,
05:53in which Walsh's full face and unconvincing John Pertwee wig can clearly be seen on camera.
05:58It's so glaringly obvious that director Lenny Main had to get Pertwee to record a couple of lines of dialogue to try and distract viewers.
06:05Unfortunately, in the current age of high-definition Blu-rays and giant TVs,
06:10those dubbed lines don't quite distract from the glaring error.
06:14Number 5, Alexander Devriant.
06:16It really says something that in a trailer featuring a giant Neil Patrick Harris,
06:20Donna Noble threatening to kick an unseen alien's arse,
06:23and Kate Stewart's giant Avengers Tower,
06:26that it was an unnamed unit soldier who was getting a portion of the fandom hot under the collar.
06:31Escorting the Doctor and Donna to a rooftop meeting with Kate Stewart,
06:34the handsome hero quickly attracted the attention of thirsty Doctor Who fans on social media,
06:39including our very own Mr. Sean Ferrick.
06:41Bless him.
06:42Thanks to a keen-eyed Twitter user,
06:44it's since been confirmed that the soldier is played by Ted Lasso's Alexander Devriant.
06:48He will be playing Colonel Ibrahim in the final 60th anniversary special, The Giggle.
06:54And while he likely won't be a background actor by the time the anniversary rolls around,
06:57Devriant's passing appearance in the trailer certainly made a good first impression.
07:02There'll be many people eagerly awaiting his first appearance as the Colonel,
07:05while also hoping he'll be joining the Unconfirmed Unit spin-off,
07:09supposedly coming at some point in the future.
07:11He just has to survive an encounter with the Toymaker first.
07:14Fingers crossed.
07:15Eh, Sean?
07:16Number 4, John Levine.
07:17From one unit soldier to another now,
07:20as Sergeant Benton,
07:21John Levine played a key role in Doctor Who's unit family during the 1970s.
07:26However, Levine had been appearing in Doctor Who for several years before his big break.
07:30He'd previously played a Cyberman in The Moonbase and a Yeti in The Web of Fear
07:35when he was starting out as an actor.
07:37And he also appeared in the classic BBC police procedural Zed Cars.
07:41And it was there where he met legendary Doctor Who director Douglas Canfield,
07:45who was taken with Levine's lack of professional training and slight innocence.
07:50It was Canfield who then suggested that Levine play Corporal Benton in the serial The Invasion,
07:55when the original actor was fired for poor timekeeping.
07:58As Levine was already signed on to play an extra in this serial,
08:02he happily agreed to the bigger role,
08:04and alongside Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier,
08:06formed the earliest iteration of unit.
08:08And when Canfield returned to direct Inferno,
08:11he further established Levine's Benton as part of the Pertwee era's unit family.
08:15This is very much a clear case of it's not what you know, it's who you know.
08:20Number 3, Johnny Lee Miller.
08:22The cast of the fifth Doctor classic, Kinder, is stacked.
08:25But the most famous actor in the entire cast is one of the background artists,
08:30a very young Johnny Lee Miller,
08:32who played the uncredited role of fruit-bearing child in this serial.
08:36That fruit-bearing child would grow up to play Sick Boy in both Trainspotting movies,
08:41the other modern-day Sherlock Holmes in Elementary,
08:45and weirdly, a Hollywood handsome version of former Prime Minister John Major in The Crown Season 5.
08:51What's strange about Johnny Lee Miller's one and only contribution to Doctor Who is that it's just that.
08:56A quick rifle through the various wild rumours about potential Doctor actors,
09:00from Chris Marshall to Denzel Washington,
09:02reveals that Johnny Lee Miller has never been linked to the role at any point in his career.
09:07And given that he's now played Sherlock Holmes,
09:10he probably doesn't want to play another eccentric British genius in a long-running TV show,
09:15so missed your chance there, Doctor Who.
09:17Number 2, Josh Dallas.
09:18Everyone has to start somewhere, right?
09:21Even Prince Charming.
09:22American actor Josh Dallas was working in the UK at the start of his career,
09:26and had a very small role in the hugely important Doctor Who episode that introduced River Song,
09:32the best character.
09:33He's since gone on to high-profile roles in Manifest and Once Upon a Time,
09:38but he started out as a literal face on a slab.
09:41But hey, if it's good enough for Shirley Henderson,
09:43Dallas played Node 2 in Silence in the Library.
09:45You know, one of those computer interfaces with a literal human face attached to it?
09:49In a deliciously dark Stephen Moffat twist,
09:52it transpired that these nodes were fitted with the faces of those that had donated them after death.
09:57This set up one of Moffat's greatest cliffhangers,
09:59as Donna Noble is later saved to one of the nodes.
10:02It's a tiny but vital role,
10:04and will likely be a footnote in Dallas' CV.
10:06That said, he must get a tiny thrill whenever he's approached at conventions,
10:10to sign a photo of Node 2 instead of his iconic roles in things such as Once Upon a Time,
10:15or Manifest, or even Thor, for that matter.
10:18Number 1. Kenneth Williams
10:20Right at the start of An Unearthly Child,
10:23a young boy interrupts his two chattering classmates with a Kenneth Williams-style,
10:27ooh, yes.
10:28It's a moment that always guarantees a chuckle from Doctor Who fans,
10:31despite how many times they might have seen the episode.
10:34So much so, that the wonderfully funny and forensic Toby Haydook
10:37set out to identify this minor actor and relate their life story on his Too Much Information podcast.
10:43Played by actor Richard Wilson,
10:45this TV schoolboy would later get a small speaking role in the movie To Sir With Love,
10:50and to differentiate himself from his empty child and one foot in the grave namesake,
10:54Richard Wilson, he changed his name to Richard Alexander,
10:58but later quit professional acting for a career in hospitality.
11:01In the Coal Hill School set spin-off class,
11:03a young boy called Kevin was memorialised as Kay Williams
11:07on the extensive list of dead pupils and teachers,
11:09including D. Pink and C. Oswald.
11:12A coincidence, but a pleasing one nonetheless.
11:14More interesting still,
11:15future second Doctor companion Fraser Hines
11:18was under consideration for a background role in the Coal Hill scenes
11:22during Doctor Who's pilot episode.
11:23Again, what a small world.
11:25Or universe.
11:26Who-niverse?
11:27And that's everything for this list,
11:29but for more Before They Were Famous Doctor Who roles,
11:31why not check out 10 future stars who appeared in Doctor Who?
11:35In the meantime, I've been Ellie with Who Culture,
11:37and in the words of Riversong herself,
11:39goodbye, sweeties.
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