Born: 17th June 1982 (as Jodie Auckland Whittaker)
Episodes Broadcast: 2017-2022

Born in Skelmanthorpe, West Yorkshire, Jodie Whittaker may have been predestined for a career in front of the camera, given that she was named after acting legend Jodie Foster. She graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2005, and made her professional debut in The Storm at Shakespeare's Globe the same year. Whittaker soon found work on television; in 2006 alone, she could be seen in episodes of The Afternoon Play, Doctors and Dalziel And Pascoe. But her first big success came at the movies, where she earned rave reviews for her performance opposite Peter O'Toole in Venus. Subsequent work during the decade included Tess Of The D'Urbervilles and Wired on television, and St Trinian's and its sequel on the silver screen. Whittaker married actor Christian Contreras on New Year's Eve 2008.

During the early 2010s, Whittaker continued to divide her time between television such as Marchlands and Black Mirror, and movies like One Day with Anne Hathaway and the science-fiction cult classic Attack The Block. Her profile increased substantially in 2013 when she played Beth Latimer, the mother of a murdered child, in Chris Chibnall's phenomenally-popular mystery drama Broadchurch. Whittaker starred in all three seasons of the show, through to 2017. During the same period, she gave birth to a daughter in 2015, and was both the star and executive producer of the 2016 movie Adult Life Skills.

Whittaker inquired about playing a villain in Doctor Who, but was instead encouraged to audition for the lead role itself

With Broadchurch wrapping up, Whittaker was aware that Chibnall was next scheduled to replace Steven Moffat as the showrunner of Doctor Who. She duly inquired about playing a villain in the series, only to find herself instead encouraged to audition for the lead role itself. During a special video which aired on BBC One immediately after the Wimbledon Gentlemen's Final on July 16th, 2017, history was made when Whittaker was revealed as the Thirteenth Doctor -- the Time Lord's first female incarnation. That Christmas, she took over from the outgoing Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi, at the end of Twice Upon A Time. In between, Whittaker starred in the medical drama Trust Me and the film Journeyman.

The Thirteenth Doctor's first full season aired in 2018 but, by the time Whittaker's second run reached the airwaves at the start of 2020, the world was becoming gripped by the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having brought her Doctor Who costume home between seasons in case it was needed for promotional activities, Whittaker used her smartphone to record a brief message -- in character as the Doctor and standing in her own closet -- which memorably offered fans comfort and reassurance in the face of the global upheaval. Meanwhile, the resulting limitations on television productions meant that the original plans for Whittaker's ten-episode third season were jettisoned, and she instead starred in the six-part Flux during 2021.

Whittaker and Chibnall had agreed from the outset that they would make three seasons of Doctor Who and then leave the show together, but the pair relented and remained for an additional trio of specials during 2022. The last of these was The Power Of The Doctor, which aired as part of the BBC's centenary celebrations. It saw the Thirteenth Doctor regenerate into a new incarnation played, ironically, by Whittaker's former Broadchurch co-star: David Tennant. Television wasn't the only medium in which Whittaker portrayed the Doctor during 2022, as she could also be heard in the BBC Sounds podcast Doctor Who: Redacted. The same year, she and Contreras welcomed their second child.