Aside from acting, Tennant has also worked as a voice actor and in the theatre, most notably as Hamlet in a 2008 production and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in the DuckTales television series (2017–2021). In 2015, he was presented with the National Television Award for Special Recognition.

Background

On April 18, 1971, Tennant was born in Bathgate, West Lothian, to Alexander "Sandy" McDonald, a priest who served as Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, and Helen McDonald. David's given name was David John McDonald when he was born. He lived with his brother Blair and sister Karen in Ralston, Renfrewshire.

Tennant's maternal great-grandparents, William and Agnes Blair, were devout Protestants from County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, who was among the signatories of the Ulster Covenant in 1912. William and Agnes Blair were devout Protestants from County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, who was among the signatories of the Ulster Covenant in 1912.

When he was three years old, Tennant expressed his desire to be an actor, heavily influenced by Doctor Who. However, his parents tried to persuade him to pursue more conventional work.

Following his acting career, he went on to say that he was "absurdly single-minded." Over the course of several years, he watched virtually every Doctor Who episode and met Tom Baker at a book signing in Glasgow. He received his education at Ralston Primary School and Paisley Grammar School, and he was a cast member in school plays throughout elementary and secondary school.

Tennant's talent was recognized by Edith MacArthur, a Scottish actress when he was just a child. Following his first stage performance at the age of eleven, she predicted that he would go on to be a successful performer on the big stage. Weekend classes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama were also a part of Tennant's schedule (now known as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). Having passed an audition for the Academy at the age of 16, he was one of the Academy's youngest students, studying there between the ages of 17 and 20 years old. After reading a copy of Smash Hits magazine and realizing that the actor's union Equity already represented another David McDonald, he changed his stage name to Neil Tennant, the lead singer of the Pet Shop Boys, to avoid confusion. In order to comply with the Screen Actors Guild's guidelines, he had to change his surname legally.

Career

Tennant made his professional acting debut while still a student at a high school in the United Kingdom. When he was 16, he appeared in an anti-smoking film produced by the Glasgow Health Board, which aired on television and was also shown in schools throughout the city. The following year, he made an appearance on an episode of Dramarama. Tennant's first professional role was in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, where he co-starred with Ashley Jensen and was his first after graduating from theatre school. His piece was just one of many that he performed with the agitprop theatre company 7:84 Theatre Company. During his early television career, he appeared in Rab C Nesbitt as Davina, a transgender barmaid who was a transgender woman. While working at the Dundee Repertory Theatre in the 1990s, he appeared in several plays.

The following year, Tennant was offered his first significant television role as Campbell Bain in the BBC Scotland drama series Takin' Over the Asylum, which he accepted after impressing director David Blair while filming another drama, Strathblair (1994). "They were looking for someone who could convincingly appear to be 19 and insane," Tennant explained after the audition. During the course of filming Takin' Over the Asylum, he met comedy actor and writer Arabella Weir. In the following months, he traveled to London and lived with Weir for five years, during which time he became godfather to her youngest child. As a result of his association with Weir, he has appeared in a number of productions with her, including as a guest on her spoof television show Posh Nosh, in the Doctor Who audio drama Exile (during which Weir played an alternate version of the Doctor), and as a panelist on More4's West Wing Ultimate Quiz (Weir later guest-starred on Doctor Who itself after Tennant left the series). The film Jude (1996), in which he played an inebriated undergraduate who challenges Christopher Eccleston's Jude to demonstrate his intelligence, was one of his first major screen appearances. Following David Tennant's tenure as The Doctor, Eccleston took on the character's role for the ninth time in his career.

Tennant's professional theater career began with frequent appearances with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the United Kingdom. His first Shakespearean role at the Royal Shakespeare Company was as Touchstone, the jester in As You Like It (1996), in which he used his natural Scottish accent to significant effect. While he had auditioned for the role of Orlando, the romantic protagonist, he was instead cast as a jester, Touchstone, in the production. After that, he went on to play a variety of roles, including Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors and Captain Jack Absolute in The Rivals, among others, despite having previously appeared as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. Also, in 2003, he starred in Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, which had its world premiere in London.

Personal Life

He is married to Georgia Tennant, a British actress who is the daughter of Peter Davison, who is also a Star Trek actor. While filming "The Doctor's Daughter," a Doctor Who episode, the couple met and became engaged in 2008. They were married on December 30, 2011, and they have five children, one of whom is Georgia's child from a previous relationship, Ty Tennant, whom David adopted as his own. Ty has appeared in several films, including Tolkien and War of the Worlds.

Having been born on March 29, 2011, Olive is the couple's daughter, and she made her acting debut at the age of two in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot as John Barrowman's daughter. Wilfred, the couple's son, was born to Georgia and William on May 2, 2013. According to the couple's announcement, Doris Tennant, the couple's second daughter, was born on November 9, 2015. On James Corden's Late Late Show on May 22, 2019, he revealed that she was expecting her fifth child. According to Georgia's official birth announcement, it was announced in March 2020 that the child is a daughter named Birdie, who was born on October 13. The family's home is in the Chiswick neighborhood of West London, England.

Because his religious beliefs had an impact on his personality, he made it a point to attend church regularly.

Tennant is a member of the Labour Party who made an appearance in a political broadcast for the organization in 2005. Then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown was reaffirmed as his supporter in 2010, and David Cameron was referred to as a "terrifying prospect" at the time. In April 2010, he contributed to a Labour Party election broadcast by providing his voice. In 2012, he introduced Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, onstage at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester. His voice was also heard on the Labour Party's 2015 General Election campaign broadcast in the UK.

When it came to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Tennant remained neutral, claiming that it was none of his business because he didn't live in Scotland and therefore had no stake in the outcome.

In 2017, he stated that if the opportunity presented itself, he would support the independence of Scotland.