8 Actors Who Should Be Doctor Who’s Sixteenth Doctor

Billie Piper is Doctor Who‘s Sixteenth Doctor. Unless, of course, she isn’t, in which case the BBC’s long-running sci-fi institution will need another actor to keep the TARDIS bouncing from one misadventure to the next.

Doctor Who season 15 concluded with the titular protagonist regenerating into Piper, seemingly confirming the former companion actor as Ncuti Gatwa’s replacement. Without a proper explanation, however, a multiverse of possibilities remains. Piper could be playing Bad Wolf, a returning Rose Tyler mixed into the Doctor’s regeneration cycle, or a transitional incarnation before the actual Sixteenth Doctor appears.

All will be revealed if and when Doctor Who season 16 happens, and should Piper’s appearance be debunked as some temporal trick rather than the debut of Doctor Who‘s real new figurehead, the door will be thrown open for another actor to make saving the universe on Saturday evening their full-time gig.

Mathew Baynton

A popular pick for Doctor Who, but not without good reason. Mathew Baynton is best known for the original UK version of Ghosts, but will also be very familiar to fans of Horrible Histories and Brit-coms more generally, having featured in Peep Show, Gavin & Stacey, and plenty more.

Baynton has perfected that vital Doctor Who quality of being endearingly silly, and no one could seriously doubt the comedic elements he would bring to the Sixteenth Doctor. Admittedly, Baynton is less tested in the dramatic arena. The likes of Sylvester McCoy and Matt Smith could switch from daft to defiant in an instant – a necessity for even the wackiest incarnation of the Doctor.

Fortunately, Baynton’s work on stage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (granted, he played Bottom) and TV series You, Me and the Apocalypse provides enough evidence to suggest he could convincingly spend a season moping about departed companions or perform a grand, heroic speech about never running from danger.

Sophie Okonedo

No stranger to Doctor Who, Sophie Okonedo played the royal Liz Ten during Matt Smith’s era. Fortunately, the episode in question was so bad, few remember it. More fortunately, Sophie Okonedo was the one bright spot, with the actress able to craft a likable, engaging side character from a story even Steven Moffat has admitted some regret over (via Ed Stradling).

In the 15 years since doing Doctor Who, Okonedo has evolved into an even more rounded performer, appearing in a wide range of movie, TV and theater productions. Slow Horses, The Wheel of Time, Ratched and Death on the Nile are just some of her recent credits, and with a host of award nominations to her name (including an Oscar), there are no questions whatsoever over Okonedo’s ability to bring the required gravitas to the Sixteenth Doctor.

The clincher, however, is Okonedo’s affinity for quirkiness, which is a factor every good Doctor demands. Her performance in Flack is testament to this, but fair warning, it isn’t for those sensitive to vulgarity. Varied, unpredictable, exciting – few actors are as qualified to step into the TARDIS and immediately make an impression.

Frank Dillane

As Fear the Walking Dead‘s Nick Clark, Frank Dillane was introspective, philosophical, often misunderstood, rarely straightforward, and always compelling. All of which reads like a byline for the Doctor’s biography, and it’s little wonder the actor was picked to portray a young Tom Riddle in the Harry Potter movies.

Dillane’s Sixteenth Doctor would fall into the David Tennant mold of Time Lord heroes – the handsome rogue with a buccaneer’s charm, but always one bad day away from burning down the entire universe.

With Renegade Nell and Joan also on his resume, Dillane is making a career out of playing lovable characters harboring questionable morals, and it’s very easy to imagine how those traits could translate into a version of the Doctor.

Tom Rosenthal

Like Mathew Baynton, Tom Rosenthal occupies the more comedic end of the acting spectrum, known foremost for Friday Night Dinner and Plebs. Also like Baynton, Rosenthal has the same foppish, offbeat quality that defined the Second, Fourth, and Eleventh Doctors. His stand-up comedy chops in particular would provide Doctor Who with a steady stream of laughs if he were ever to land the Sixteenth Doctor job.

Again, the question mark over Tom Rosenthal’s casting would be his aptitude for serious, soul-shaking scenes. Even more so than Baynton, Rosenthal isn’t known as a dramatic anchor, and while he would excel at mocking a companion’s new hairstyle, his ability to make a Dalek quake in its shell is less guaranteed.

Having said that, the role of the Doctor does have a habit of bringing the best out of actors. The likes of Jon Pertwee, Jodie Whittaker and Matt Smith were all unknown quantities or risky choices to some degree, and each of them made hugely positive contributions to the legacy of the Doctor.

Pierre Moullier

A relative newcomer, Pierre Moullier joined the cast of UK soap drama Eastenders in 2025, quickly making a splash with his chaotic energy and sharp wit. That success derived almost entirely from Moullier as a performer, and it became very obvious very quickly that the BBC had a huge young talent on its hands.

The path from soap star to Doctor Who is a well-traveled one, with Millie Gibson recently swapping Coronation Street for the honor of being Ncuti Gatwa’s first companion. Eastenders and Doctor Who, however, share an even deeper relationship, with 1993’s Dimensions in Time serving as a crossover between the two iconic BBC properties.

Pierre Moullier is clearly destined for big things, and the BBC is in pole position to push his career to greater heights. Being cast as the Sixteenth Doctor would undoubtedly raise eyebrows due to his youth and inexperience, but Moullier’s habit of lighting up a screen and casting a vice-like grip on the audience’s attention would soon win over naysayers.

Nathan Stewart-Jarrett

Nathan Stewart-Jarrett was the face of edgy British TV in the late ’00s/early ’10s, starring in both Misfits and the brilliant Utopia. An actor of some skill, those two roles were a world apart in terms of tone and character, giving an early indication of the versatility any main player in Doctor Who would need.

Stewart-Jarrett has continued to push his career into other areas, covering everything from horror movies to heist capers, but one cannot help but feel he’s due a more defining role. Stewart-Jarrett would likely be among the more intense Time Lords to pilot the TARDIS, more along the lines of Colin Baker, Christopher Eccleston and Peter Capaldi than Tom Baker or David Tennant, but that plays neatly into the character’s arc.

Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor demonstrated flickers of a darker side, most notably when torturing a terrorist in season 15. Gatwa left Doctor Who before that plot point could be properly unpacked, but Nathan Stewart-Jarrett would be the perfect actor to take the reins and continue the Doctor’s seldom-seem vengeful tendencies.

Maxine Peake

An icon of British television, it’s a small miracle that Maxine Peake doesn’t already have a Doctor Who credit to her name. Still, past Doctor Who‘s loss could be future Doctor Who‘s gain if Peake lands the Sixteenth Doctor part. With a career that spans serving up school dinners in Dinnerladies to portraying a real-life killer in See No Evil, Peake arguably has a stronger silly-to-serious bandwidth than any other actor on this list.

That would immediately put her casting alongside Peter Capaldi’s in terms of recruiting an experienced, recognizable face who has pumped out one classic role after another across several decades. Capaldi, of course, delivered some of Doctor Who‘s truly standout moments, including the immortal “Heaven Sent,” and Peake is similarly placed to deliver the same caliber of performance.

With Peake’s range, the Sixteenth Doctor would become a truly malleable figure – impossible to pin down or predict, capable of feeling comforting and dangerous within the same scene. The only real obstacle would be convincing Peake to take the offer, as she previously ruled herself out when the race to find Peter Capaldi’s replacement was on in 2017.

Curiously, Peake’s rebuttal came pre-Jodie Whittaker, which explains comments like, “Some journalist just sits in a room and goes, ‘Oh, hang on, she looks a bit like a bloke or she’s a big androgynous, she played Hamlet so stick her name down‘” (via RadioTimes). Now that the gender barriers of playing the Doctor have been fully torn down, there is a chance she may reconsider.

Mawaan Rizwan

As, technically speaking, the person who named the Dalek race, Mawaan Rizwan already holds an enviable place in Doctor Who history. Still, his 2023 role as Mr. Castavillian barely scratched the surface of the actor’s capabilities.

Comedy is Rizwan’s game, as demonstrated by the aforementioned Destination: Skaro skit and his own award-winning series, Juice. The surreal nature of the latter highlights the kind of freshness Rizwan could bring as the Sixteenth Doctor, and it’s a wackiness that would mesh perfectly with Russell T Davies’ current trend of making Doctor Who a meta, fourth wall-breaking beast.

Rizwan’s brand of physicality hasn’t been seen since the Smith era, while his experience in screenwriting brings a narrative maturity that would undoubtedly prove useful in carrying Doctor Who‘s dense exposition.

Sources: Ed Stradling, RadioTimes