Sylvester McCoy Net Worth

Sylvester McCoy's Quotes

• I don't relax. I sit down and contemplate all the energetic things I should do.
• [on Doctor Who (1963)] There was always that negative feeling when we went into work - not from John (John Nathan-Turner), but those above him. There was always a battle going on. They didn't really want it. They were keeping it on because it was there and they couldn't really figure out a way to get rid of it. John was leaving and they didn't know how to replace him really. This time he had said he was, and that was it - it didn't carry on. They couldn't find anyone to volunteer to take it over. They could have asked me!
• It's all to do with the writing: Doctor Who (1963) has always been to do with the writing. Each writer brings their own individual story, and with that their own take on the Doctor.
• [on Doctor Who: Rose (2005)] It had a great pace, it moved really quickly and was witty. Christopher Eccleston was quite alien as the Doctor - he looked wonderful. He had this manic grin - we were not sure if he was on the edge of insanity or not, which was rather good. He ran into danger with such gusto. He galloped at it joyfully. Billie Piper was quite fantastic. The relationship between the two was quite extraordinary. In a way this Doctor was not the brightest brain in the universe - he's a bit like an Oxford don in that he's full of brains but with not much nous. There was a great scene when he was searching for a giant round object and Rose had to point out he was standing in front of the London Eye. He seemed to need Rose more than any other Doctor needed his companion, because she could really help him.
• Variety has always been in my mind; to do something totally different . I've had a parallel career since the beginning. On one track the TV and film, the other theatre, but they never crossed. Even when I did Doctor Who (1963) I was still doing stuff at the National and on tour but going back. So I've always done plays and had this schizophrenic experience but neither have affected each other as the casting director and so on very rarely cross over. It did affect my telly career and made it not quite as exciting - in those days the swap over between roles was harder to do. The only thing Doctor Who (1963) added was a knot on my wage - I got paid a bit more.

Interesting Facts about Sylvester McCoy

1. McCoy technically became the longest-serving Doctor after reprising the role in 1996. His term as the Doctor stretched from 1987 until 1996, a total of 8.5 years. However, as the series was not produced as an ongoing series from the end of Doctor Who (1963) in 1989 until the American co-production Doctor Who (1996), in which McCoy handed over to Paul McGann, Tom Baker is still the longest continuously-serving Doctor on screen at seven years (1974-1981).
2. He is adept at playing both the xylophone and the spoons. He can also juggle and once gained a reputation for stuffing live ferrets down his trousers.
3. McCoy and Timothy Dalton appeared together on stage in London in 1986 and complained to each other that long-term work was so hard to find. The next year, both had screen acting breaks when McCoy was cast as the Seventh Doctor in Doctor Who (1963) and Dalton was cast as James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987). However, both McCoy's tenure as the Doctor and Dalton's tenure as Bond proved short-lived as both of these iconic British franchises were cancelled in 1989 for several years and recast when they eventually returned.
4. He was considered for the role of Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). He played Radagast the Brown in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014).
5. He became the first of three non-English actors to portray the character of the Doctor and the first of many actors to speak with an accent other than Received Pronunciation English: Christopher Eccleston portrayed the Ninth Doctor in 2005 with a Northern accent, David Tennant is a fellow Scot who portrayed the Doctor from 2005 to 2010 with a London/Estuary accent, Peter Capaldi is likewise Scottish and plays the Twelfth Doctor with his natural accent, and Jodie Whittaker plays the role with her Yorkshire accent.
6. He is one of three actors who portrayed The Doctor on TV to appear in an episode of Casualty (1986). The others are Colin Baker and Christopher Eccleston.
7. He is the only actor to appear in both Doctor Who (1963) and Doctor Who (1996).
8. He was raised primarily in Dublin, Ireland.
9. He is the the only Doctor to have played the role during two regenerations. When Colin Baker left the role he refused to do the regeneration scene. So Sylvester donned Baker's costume and a blonde wig and stood in as Baker. This is the reason that for only the second time in the series (See Peter Davison's regeneration) the Doctor's face is obscured as he changes his appearance.
10. His father Percy Kent-Smith was a Royal Navy submarine officer and was killed in the second world war on July 18, 1943, only a month before he was born.
11. He did not start acting until he was 28 years old.
12. He reportedly took offence to the line written by Mark Gatiss and delivered by David Walliams in the BBC2 sketch The Pitch of Fear (1999) in which Sydney Newman says the Doctor could be played "by any f***** with an Equity Card" towards the end of its run. It was subsequently edited from the version included on a DVD at Gatiss' request. McCoy's acting work has included performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
13. In May 2005, he attended Collectormania 7 at Milton Keynes and was about to begin a stage run in Glasgow.
14. He has two roles in common with John Hurt: (1) Hurt played the Fool in King Lear (1983) while McCoy played him in King Lear (2008) and (2) McCoy played the Seventh Doctor in Doctor Who (1963) and Doctor Who (1996) while Hurt played the War Doctor in Doctor Who (2005).
15. The script editor of Doctor Who during the McCoy era, Andrew Cartmel, described McCoy as "the Dark Doctor" because he was characterized as more cunning and manipulative than previous incarnations.