Matt Smith (actor)

Matt Robert Smith
Smith on set filming for Doctor Who
Born	Matthew Robert Smith 28 October 1982 (1982-10-28) (age 28) Northampton, United Kingdom
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2003–present
Partner	Sam Taylor

Matthew Robert Smith^[1] (born 28 October 1982) is an English stage and television actor. An aspiring youth footballer, Smith became an actor in 2003 after a back injury. His first performance was in Murder in the Cathedral as part of the National Youth Theatre. He also starred in Fresh Kills and alongside Christian Slater in the stage adaptation of Swimming with Sharks.^[2]

Smith's first television role came in 2006, as Jim Taylor in the BBC adaptations of Phillip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North. His first major role in television came in 2007, as Danny in the BBC series Party Animals, and his first West End theatre role came in the same year in Swimming with Sharks, followed a year later by a critically acclaimed performance as Henry in That Face.^[3]

In January 2009, Smith was cast to play the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in the famous British television series Doctor Who, first appearing in part two of The End of Time which aired on 1 January 2010. Smith is now the youngest person to play the Doctor, ahead of Peter Davison, who was 29 when he started playing the role of the fifth Doctor.^[4][5]

Education

Smith was educated at Northampton School for Boys, a state comprehensive secondary school in Northampton, followed by the University of East Anglia, where he studied drama with creative writing.

Early years

Smith was born and raised in Northampton. He planned to be a professional football player, having played for the youth teams of Northampton Town F.C., Nottingham Forest F.C. and Leicester City F.C.^[6] After a serious back injury, his drama teacher introduced him to acting by surreptitiously signing him up as the tenth juror in an adaptation of Twelve Angry Men.^[7] Although he took part in the play, he declined going to a drama festival that his teacher had signed him up for.^[7] His drama teacher persisted, and eventually persuaded him to join the National Youth Theatre in London. After leaving school, Smith studied drama and creative writing at the University of East Anglia.^[7] He has cited his favourite band, Radiohead, as an inspiration: "That’s what I want when I go to the theatre, when I’m in a play, is them, and that experience that I get from them."^[8]

Smith's first theatre roles came as part of the National Youth Theatre were Thomas Becket in Murder in the Cathedral and Basoon in The Master and Margarita. His role in the latter earned him an agent and his first professional jobs: Fresh Kills and On the Shore of the Wide World. His new professional roles led to him being required to seek an agreement with his university so that he could graduate without attending lectures in his final two terms.^[9]

He is a supporter of Blackburn Rovers F.C.^[10]

Professional acting career

During his tenure in On the Shore of the Wide World, the play transferred to the Royal National Theatre in London. After finishing the play, he took on the role of Lockwood, a pupil in the Alan Bennett play The History Boys. After The History Boys, he would act in the teen play Burn/Chatroom/Citizenship, and Swimming with Sharks; the latter being his West End début, alongside Christian Slater.^[7][9] His first television role was as Jim Taylor in the BBC adaptations of the Sally Lockhart quartet books The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North, opposite Billie Piper in the lead role; he would act alongside Piper a third time in an episode of Secret Diary of a Call Girl.^[11]

That Face

In 2007, Smith appeared as Henry in the critically acclaimed Polly Stenham play That Face at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in Chelsea alongside Lindsay Duncan as Henry's alcoholic mother, Martha, and Felicity Jones—later Hannah Murray—as Henry's drug-addicted sister, Mia. The play transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End in 2008 and became Smith's second role there. That Face focuses primarily upon alcohol and drug addiction in an upper-middle-class family after the paternal figure in the family leaves. As Henry, Smith portrayed an aspiring artist who left school to take care of his mother. To prepare for the role, the cast interviewed alcoholics and their families. Smith discussed his character's relationship with his mother in an interview with the Evening Standard:^[7]

The thing I find tricky to get my head round is why doesn't he just leave? An awful lot of it is codependency. [...] With Henry there's a real belief—or denial maybe—that he can change his mother. When she is finally pulled away from him to go to rehab, his identity collapses. His sacrifice has been for nothing.

– Matt Smith, 6 May 2008, "That face to watch", Evening Standard^[7]

The entire cast of the play was nominated for the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre,^[12] and Smith won the Evening Standard's award for "best newcomer" for his role.^[13] Upon its transfer to the West End, the play was critically acclaimed, with Smith's performance as Henry highlighted as one of the positive aspects of the play by critics for The Evening Standard, The Daily Express, The Guardian, and The Times.^[14]

Party Animals

Smith's first major television role came in the television series Party Animals, a BBC television drama series about fictional parliamentary advisors and researchers in Westminster. In Party Animals, Smith portrays Danny Foster, a parliamentary researcher to Jo Porter (Raquel Cassidy), the Labour Party Home Office junior minister. At 26 years old, Danny is described as an intelligent but timid "politics geek" who should have moved on from researching at his age. Within the series' narrative, he attempts to balance his affections for Kirsty MacKenzie (Andrea Riseborough), his intern, while trying to prevent Porter's imminent decline.^[15]

In an interview in 2007, Smith discussed his character's motivations. He summarised Danny as having a romantic outlook of the political world while being cynical elsewhere. The character was drawn into politics by his father and his own political drive. He defended his character's age by characterising him as being loyal to Porter, instead of being incompetent. He talked about his character's emotional and intellectual maturity: emotionally, he lacks confidence around women—most notably seen with his unrequited love towards Kirsty—but Smith portrays Danny as a caring and sensitive but "wry, sarcastic, [and] witty" romantic; and intellectually, Danny is portrayed as attentive and of possessing a strong work ethic.^[16]

Doctor Who

Karen Gillan as Amy Pond, with Matt Smith as Eleventh Doctor (2009)

Smith was cast as the Eleventh Doctor in the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who in January 2009^[18] to replace David Tennant, who announced his departure in October 2008.^[19] Smith was a relatively unknown actor compared to the actors then speculated about possibly taking on the role, who included Paterson Joseph, David Morrissey, Sean Pertwee, James Nesbitt, Russell Tovey, Catherine Zeta Jones, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Robert Carlyle and Billie Piper.^[20] Smith was first named as a possible successor less than a day before he was announced as the Eleventh Doctor, on the 3 January 2009 edition of BBC Breakfast among the names speculated about.^[21] His obscurity prompted the news headline "Doctor Who?", a pun on the show's title.^[22][23][24]

Smith was one of the earliest actors to audition for the role, performing on the first day. The production team, consisting of the incoming producer, Steven Moffat, and BBC Wales Head of Drama and executive producer, Piers Wenger, immediately singled him out based on his performance.^[18] Smith additionally auditioned for the role of John Watson in the Moffat-created Sherlock, undergoing auditions at the same time; he was unsuccessful, as Moffat believed his eccentric acting style was closer to Holmes, whose role had already been given to Benedict Cumberbatch.^[25] At 26 years old, Smith was three years younger than Peter Davison was at the time of his casting as the Doctor in 1981, and younger than any other actor suggested for the role.^[18] After three weeks of auditions, Moffat and Wenger agreed that it had "always been Matt" and approached him to accept the role.^[18] The BBC were cautious about casting him because they felt that a 26-year-old could not play the Doctor adequately; Wenger shared the same sentiment but thought Smith had proven his acting quality in Party Animals, which Wenger thought highlighted Smith's "mercurial qualities".^[17][18] Some fans of the show believed that Smith was inexperienced and too young for the role, while others supported him by citing his demonstrated acting ability.^[26]

In June 2010, he appeared on stage with Orbital, and performed with them a version of the Doctor Who theme, at the Glastonbury Festival.^[27] Smith hosted the Doctor Who Prom at the Royal Albert Hall on 24–25 July 2010.^[28]

Credits

Film and television

Theatre

Video games

References

External links

• Matt Smith at the Internet Movie Database