So, What Did Peter Capaldi Do Before 'Doctor Who'?
Peter Capaldiwill make his debut series appearance as the twelfth doctor when series eight ofDoctor Whobegins on 23 August 2014. At 55 years old when cast, Capaldi will be the oldest actor to play the titular role since the first doctor, William Hartnell, in direct contrast to his predecessor, Matt Smith, who was the youngest actor to take on the iconic role.
While fans have been left in the dark about plot lines, they have been treated to some personality teasers about this new incarnation. On Doctor Who TV, Capaldi revealed: "He’s more alien than he’s been for a while. He doesn’t quite understand human beings or really care very much about their approval."
Although Doctor Who is a huge franchise and must surely be a career high, Capaldi is no stranger to making appearances in successful productions.
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S**kins**
Of course _Skins _ultimately revolves around the lives of a group of sixth form teenagers: their loves; their laughs; their mistakes; and their adolescent difficulties. But all kids have parents and Capaldi played the angry father of Sid Jenkins.
He featured in three episodes in which he shouted at his son significantly in his gruff Scottish accent before he died of an apparent heart attack following a visit from his own overbearing father and extended family.
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Peter Capaldi co-starred in 'World War Z' [Getty/Stuart C. Wilson]
The Thick of It
The Thick of It is a highly-acclaimed British comedy series that satirises the inner workings of the British Government in which Capaldi played the vicious spin doctor, Malcolm Tucker.
The show ran for four series and two specials and centred on the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship (DoSAC), the mess ups of the ministers and Malcolm Tucker’s foul-mouthed tirades as he tried to correct them.
So blurred did the line of this popular documentary-style show become with modern-day politics that life began imitating art instead of the other way around.
Complaining about Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for DoSAC, to Nicola Murray herself, Capaldi’s Tucker calls her an omnishambles. This phrase was later adopted in cabinet itself by Ed Milliband as he described the Government’s 2012 budget and was formerly added to the online editions of the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013.
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Next page: In The Loop, World War Z
In the Loop
A film spin-off of the popular sitcom, The Thick of It, Capaldi takes Tucker across to America where the comedy has a go at satirising 21st Century Anglo-American politics and the potential invasion of Iraq.
The film features a number of actors from the Thick of It series but the majority are new characters with the main exception of Malcolm Tucker.
Critical reception for the film at its Sundance Festival premiere was positive and it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2010.
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World War Z
Brad Pitt’s epic adaptation that came eventually arrived on the big screen in 2013 after numerous difficulties, made a stop off in Glasgow and included Peter Capaldi in scenes shown as Cardiff.
Capaldi played a World Health Organisation (WHO) researcher who was a vital role in aiding Pitt’s former United Nations investigator character, Gerry, to test a theory which could help to stop the deadly zombie war.