Back in the day, years ago, in 1988, the only TV I watched was 'Doctor Who' because I had children and two full-time jobs, and 'Doctor Who' was the exact length of time it took to do my nails, so I would watch 'Doctor Who' once a week!
The big reason that 'Doctor Who' is still with us is that every single viewer who ever turned in to watch this show, at any age, at any time in its history, took it into their heart - because 'Doctor Who' belongs to all of us. Everyone made 'Doctor Who.'
I was the first companion to kiss the Doctor. I played Grace Holloway to Paul McGann's Doctor in the 1996 TV movie. We shared three kisses, in fact: very sweet and chaste. When I took the part, I'd never even heard of 'Doctor Who.' No one warned me that the kisses would be a big deal.
The real trouble with the doctor image in America is that it has been grayed by the image of the doctor-as-businessman, the doctor-as-bureaucrat, the doctor-as-medical-robot, and the doctor-as-terrified-victim-of-malpractice-suits.
Time is the great doctor of your life. You have to respect the doctor. The devouring self is the patient. Listen to the doctor.
When the BBC decided to bring Doctor Who back as a feature film a few years ago, one national newspaper ran a poll to ask its readers who should be the new Doctor, and I topped it.
It was the cholesterol. I had two fried eggs a day for breakfast. I had no checkups for five years. I kept meaning to go. The doctor would probably say it was years of bad living. I've always had a good time. Maybe I've had too good a time.
The Doctor: Sorry, do you have a name? Idris: Seven hundred years and finally he asks. The Doctor: But what do I call you? Idris: I think you call me... Sexy? The Doctor: [embarrassed] Only when we're alone. Idris: We are alone. The Doctor: Oh. Come on then, Sexy.
Writing was in my mind from the time I was in high school, but more, the idea that I would be a doctor. I really wanted to be a medical doctor, and I had various schemes: one was to be a psychiatrist, another was tropical medicine.
It's great to be excited by your profession, whether you are a doctor or a writer. I started writing books when I was in medical school and, by the time I graduated, I realized that writing was more exciting to me than being a doctor. And if I tried to be a doctor and a writer, then both would suffer.
A doctor can be a doctor today and they will be a doctor tomorrow. But an actor, well you're not working at anything right now, whereas the doctor is going to have their job tomorrow, for the most part. So there's the insecurity of that, and you have to go where the work is.
One time this guy on the street wanted me to give him a medical opinion, because I'm a doctor on TV. I'm also a real doctor. But I'm also Zack Braff, so I kicked him in the groin.
A man came round in hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, "Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!" The doctor replied, "I know you can't, I had to amputate your arms"
I am a massive 'Doctor Who' fan, and my favourite doctor was David Tennant, so if we could go back in time to that era and I could be somewhere in the background, that would be great. I would even stick myself inside a Dalek just to be there.
I'm so glad I didn't become a doctor, because I do more than any doctor can do. I am an administrator, a CEO, doctor, psychiatrist, an activist, a campaign funder. I think I did well.
Probably, had World War II not come along and intervened, I would have tried to be a doctor. My son's a doctor, and I still take some medical journals to this day.
I had once thought I would become a doctor but gave up on the thought soon enough. I took up the racquet instead. Later, when I saw my sister studying so much to become a doctor, I was like, 'Thank God I am a shuttler!'