What These Doctor Who Actors Look Like Today

Before Tom Baker began pursuing acting at 22, he had already performed his national services within the Royal Army Medical Corps and trained as a priest for six years before that. After studying acting in college, he worked his way from stage plays to television appearances and several key film roles. However, by the time he was cast as the Fourth Doctor, he was a crewman on a construction site due to a lack of work. 

Baker holds the record for playing the longest-running Doctor, eschewing the three-year rule that many of his fellow Doctors followed and starring for seven years across just as many seasons. Even now he remains one the most popular and famous Doctors in its history.

After Baker left "Doctor Who," he went on to a number of prestigious roles. Baker played Sherlock Holmes in a four-part 1982 BBC production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and appeared as Puddleglum in a 1990 TV adaptation of C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" novel "The Silver Chair," although he never escaped the character he is best known for. 

As he got older, Tom Baker shifted his focus to vocal performances to great success, providing voiceover and narration for many British programs and reprising his role as the Fourth Doctor in full-cast audio dramas from Big Finish Productions. He has even hopped the pond to voice characters like the enigmatic Bendu for Disney's "Star Wars: Rebels" animated series.  

Though they never worked together in the show, the classic series' final three Doctors have since become a trio in their own right. Peter Davison, famous for "All Creatures Great and Small," was cast as Tom Baker's replacement at the age of 29, making him the youngest actor to play the Doctor until Matt Smith usurped him in 2011. Fearing he would be typecast if he stayed too long, Davison left the show and was replaced by Colin Baker, an unexpected choice due to his previous appearance on the show and his history of playing villains. 

Armed with a rainbow-colored costume, Baker's arrogant Sixth Doctor was unpopular and ultimately fired after his second full season due to behind-the-scenes drama at the BBC. Sylvester McCoy, a comedic entertainer, was cast as Colin's replacement and played the Seventh Doctor until the show's cancellation in 1989, though many know him better today as the wizard "Radagast the Brown" from Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" trilogy. 

The three went on to successful careers in plays, television, and film, but they cemented their status as a trio by being the first actors to reprise their roles as the Doctor for Big Finish Productions in 1999. They premiered in a multi-doctor story and have appeared many times together since in audio dramas, on stage at conventions, and most notably on screen in 2013's "The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot," their hilarious parody of the BBC's 50th-anniversary celebrations. 

Offered a record deal at the age of 15, Billie Piper's first two singles, "Because We Want To" and "Girlfriend," both debuted at the top of the UK Singles Chart, leading to a music career that spanned two albums and multiple tours until she left the stage in 2001. Because of this, when the BBC announced in 2004 that Piper would play Rose Tyler, the first companion of the revived "Doctor Who" series, some were skeptical of the former pop idol's acting chops.

However, Piper received broad acclaim for her role across the show's first two seasons and has returned to it several times in subsequent years. After she left, she was cast as Hannah Baxter, the lead role of "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," a series based on the memoir, "The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl," whose identity was still secret when the series began. 

Perhaps her most celebrated achievement, however, was her lead role in the 2016 production of "Yerma." Her appearance was so devastatingly good that she won all six of the significant British theatrical best actress awards for that one performance, including the famed Olivier Award, as noted by The Independent. Since then, she has also co-created and starred in the first season of the critically acclaimed Sky Atlantic television series titled "I Hate Suzie."

Born and raised in London, Freema Agyeman began her acting career after studying drama at Middlesex University, as noted by The Guardian. Her first major television role was as Lola Wise in a revival of the "Crossroads" soap opera in 2001. Agyeman appeared in several other minor television roles, one of which was a small role in the "Doctor Who" second season finale in 2006 as a technician named Adeola Oshodi. 

Agyeman got this role after going for several different parts in both "Doctor Who" and Season 1 of "Torchwood." Her auditions were so impressive that they made her the lead candidate for Rose Tyler's replacement after Billie Piper left the series. In 2006, she was announced as medical student Martha Jones, the Doctor's next companion for the revived series' third season. Agyeman was the primary companion for only that season, but she returned multiple times, guest-starring across episodes of both "Torchwood" and the fourth season of "Doctor Who" alongside Catherine Tate's Donna Noble. 

Her first significant role after leaving "Doctor Who" was as Tattycoram in "Little Dorrit" on the BBC, and her next was as Crown Prosecutor Alesha Phillips in "Law and Order: UK." Agyeman starred in this series for its first three seasons before going on to great acclaim on "Sense8" as Amanita Caplan and "New Amsterdam" as Dr. Helen Sharpe. 

Though Matt Smith is now a beloved actor and Doctor, he almost never went into acting at all. An astounding footballer, Smith eschewed acting in hopes of going pro and only stopped after a serious back injury ended his career prematurely. Still relatively uninterested in acting, his drama teacher began signing him up for plays and drama festivals until he finally fell in love with the profession. 

After several of his plays in college earned him an agent, Smith landed a variety of television roles before catching the new "Doctor Who" showrunner Steven Moffat's eye during auditions. Only 26 at the time, Smith was the youngest actor to ever play or be cast as the Doctor. Due to his relative inexperience and obscurity, many were unconvinced that he could adequately handle the role of the ancient Time Lord, but after several seasons and multiple specials, Matt Smith is now one of the most celebrated Doctors to ever star in the series. 

Since leaving "Doctor Who," Smith's most acclaimed role was his time as Prince Philip in Netflix's "The Crown, though he also appeared in a number of other plays, series, and films, including "Last Night in Soho," "Terminator Genisys," and "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." He is currently set to play major roles in several heavily anticipated projects, including the Game of Thrones prequel series "House of the Dragon" and "Morbius," a film about the Spider-Man villain of the same name. 

After attending drama school and achieving some critical success in the theater, Arthur Darvill got his first big break playing a nurse named Rory Williams across the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons of "Doctor Who" alongside his former stage co-star, Matt Smith. Though his character only met one version of the Doctor onscreen, Darvill himself has worked with a surprising number of them. 

Once he left the show, his next major role was as Paul Coates in "Broadchurch," a drama series created by future "Doctor Who" showrunner Chris Chibnall that starred both the former Tenth Doctor, David Tennant and the future Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker. After this, he starred as DC Comic's famous time traveler, Rip Hunter, across the first three seasons of "DC's Legends of Tomorrow." 

Darvill has also maintained a music career as a composer alongside his various acting roles, creating the score for a 2008 play called "The Frontline" and writing a musical version of Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr. Fox" alongside playwright Sam Holcroft in 2016, among other projects. Darvill has since returned to record "Doctor Who" audio dramas with Big Finish Productions. 

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Peter Capaldi grew up watching the original seasons of the "Doctor Who" classic series. His childhood love of the program inspired him to pursue acting at the Glasgow School of Art, where he also helped create a small punk rock band called "The Dreamboys" alongside famous Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson. One of Capaldi's first achievements, a short film titled "Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life," netted him both an Oscar and a BAFTA in 1994. 

Though he has acted in a multitude of productions since 1983, Capaldi became a household name in the U.K. largely through his award-winning performance as the foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker in the BBC series, "The Thick of It." A long-time fan of "Doctor Who," Capaldi had already played two different characters in the show's universe before he was cast as the Twelfth Doctor. He played a Roman man in a David Tennant episode from Season 4 as well as a tortured civil servant named John Frobisher in the show's adult-oriented spin-off, "Torchwood." 

After playing the Twelfth Doctor for several years, Capaldi left the show in 2017 and went on to star in a number of prominent minor roles. He was Mr. Curry in both "Paddington" films, the Rabbit in "Christopher Robin, and the Thinker in James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad." His lead role in his latest project, however, "The Devil's Hour," has reunited him with former "Doctor Who" and "Sherlock" showrunner Steven Moffatt.