Doctor Who Christmas Special Interview With Pearl Mackie

It's that time again when there is a new episode of Doctor Who and that means interviews from the BBC Media Centre.  So to kick things off we start with the first interview with Pearl Mackie who plays Bill.

What have we got to look forward to in this episode?

There’s so much! We’ve got not one but two TARDISes, and we travel in both of them which is pretty exciting. We’ve also got three Doctors - that’s pretty amazing. Obviously we’ve got the current Doctor who we all know and love, but we’ve also got the First Doctor played by David Bradley - who is phenomenal. The current Doctor, who’s dying but refusing to regenerate at the start of the story, meets him as a way of dealing with his current struggles. The interaction between those two is great - really funny, but also surprising and very moving in places. And of course there’s also the regeneration, when the Twelfth Doctor becomes the Thirteenth Doctor!

Were you excited to get the call asking you back?

Very much so - it was a total honour to be asked back and it’s even more exciting that it’s for a Christmas special! Bill is 100% back with the full Bill energy, but she’s not quite all she seems...

What else can you tell us about the episode?

We also have a new monster - a lady who’s made of glass, but you’ll have to tune in to find out what she’s up to. We’ve also got some old foes returning, to make Christmas even more exciting!

Were there any sets or locations that you particularly enjoyed working on?

It was very exciting to be on the set of the first Doctor’s TARDIS. It wasn’t something I was that familiar with, but great to get acclimatised on. And apparently there were lots of props that were actually used in the original TARDIS that were used in our set too, so it really does look and feel like the real deal from the first series of Doctor Who over fifty years ago. Some of the ice sets were really cool too, plus the huge battlefield which features during some key moments of the episode.

Why should we watch?

One of the amazing things about Doctor Who is that it’s sci-fi, but it has that humanity to it. It has human relationships and interactions, with the added excitement of the monsters, the amazing sets and the wonders of exploring all of time and space. This episode has all of that in a really big accessible adventure for all ages - plus the regeneration!