David Tennant's kids love Doctor Who – but their favourite Time Lord is Matt Smith
"I did not force this upon them!" says the former Doctor Who star. "They watched the episode my wife [Georgia Moffett] and I met on and then they developed this passion for it"
It might be five whole years since David Tennant hung up his sonic screwdriver and stepped out of the Tardis, but he's far from left the Whoniverse behind.
"It will always be with me," he admits on this weekend's Jonathan Ross Show. "It never goes away. The first line of the obituary, I suspect, has been written. But that’s fine, I’m very proud of it."
He might have moved on professionally - he's set to star as Kilgrave in upcoming Netflix Original Series Marvel's Jessica Jones - but at home it's like he never even left, because his children have discovered the sci-fi series. And they absolutely love it.
"I did not force this upon them! My wife [Georgia Moffett] and I met on Doctor Who and they saw a picture, they got wind of that. So they wanted to see it and they watched the episode we met on, and then they developed this passion for it," Tennant tells Ross.
"It's now on in our house all the time, which is embarrassing when people come round because it looks like there’s a moving shrine to myself in the corner of the living room at all times."
Their new favourite TV show comes with a downside, Tennant explains. "The other day, Olive [my daughter] watched my last one, and I thought ‘this is fine’, I wasn’t really thinking about it. It gets quite sad toward the end, and she was wrapped so I wasn’t really paying any attention to the way she was reacting to it. And then she got really upset, really upset! You know, quite moved! Part of me was thinking, ‘Aw [she] doesn’t want to see her daddy moving on.’ Four hours later she was still crying, at which point it felt like bad parenting, I have to be honest."
But, of course, as is the nature of Doctor Who, when one door closes another one opens...
"Yesterday she found Matt Smith and he’s her favourite," Tennant admits. "They’re fickle."
The Broadchurch actor also revealed he and wife Georgia have recently added a fourth child – a baby girl – to their brood. "We've just had another one! We're quite pleased. We managed to [keep that] under the radar, which is how we like to do it on the whole."
The Jonathan Ross Show is on this Saturday at 9:45pm on ITV
