Jodie Whittaker: I deliberately forgot my lines in Doctor Who audition

Jodie Whittaker has said she deliberately forgot her lines when her co-star Mandip Gill auditioned for Doctor Who.

The pair first met at Gill’s final audition for the role of companion Yasmin Khan in the BBC sci-fi show.

Gill, 32, told Whittaker in a joint interview in Radio Times magazine: “The great thing was, you didn’t know your lines!” before Whittaker confessed: “I did that on purpose.”

Whittaker, 37, who plays the Time Lord, said: “It’s so intimidating when the other actor knows all their lines, but there’s meant to be room for playing and having fun.

“I knew you’d be more comfortable if I wasn’t overly prepared.”

The pair said that they enjoy each other’s company so much that they “FaceTime in the evening, even though we’ve been together all day”.

Whittaker said she would have never imagined getting the role.

“I didn’t look like Wonder Woman, chiselled out of rock. Never in my wildest dreams did I think these barrier-breaking roles would be mine,” she said.

Meanwhile, Sacha Dhawan, 35, the latest actor cast as arch-villain the Master, told the magazine: “There was a time when I was constantly going up for the terrorist, or characters that just weren’t as interesting.

“But I was adamant that I was going to prove the industry wrong.”

The full interviews are in this week’s Radio Times magazine.