Born: 14th April 1958 (as Peter Dougan Capaldi)
Episodes Broadcast: 2008-2009, 2013-2017

Without Doctor Who, it's entirely possible that the acting profession would have been deprived of the talents of Peter Capaldi. Having become a huge fan of the show while growing up in his native Glasgow, Scotland, Capaldi reached out to the Doctor Who production office, then led by Barry Letts. He would maintain a regular correspondence with the programme's staff during the early Seventies, although his persistence sometimes became a source of irritation for them. Capaldi was keen to be put in charge of the officially-sanctioned Doctor Who fan club, and a spark of rivalry resulted when he learned that the job had already been given to Keith Miller. But his interest in performance and production was now firmly stoked, and he began acting at the Fort Theatre in Bishopbriggs while he was still in high school.

Rejected by the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Capaldi instead enrolled at the Glasgow School of Arts. A skilled singer and guitarist, he also formed a punk rock band called The Dreamboys; they had one single, Bela Lugosi's Birthday, before breaking up in 1981. On drums was Craig Ferguson, whom Capaldi inspired to try stand-up comedy after deciding to pursue it as a potential career himself. Ferguson would go on to enormous success, including several years as the host of The Late Late Show on American network CBS -- during which he would make no secret of his own love for Doctor Who. Meanwhile, Capaldi's emerging talent for illustration and animation led to television work, first as a dresser and then providing graphics for the New Year's Eve comedy show 81 Take 2.

Capaldi gained considerable notice for his performance in the 1983 classic Local Hero

By the time he graduated, Capaldi's work in stand-up comedy had floundered, but the exposure it provided led to his first professional work as an actor. Following a small role in the 1982 movie Living Apart Together, he gained considerable notice for his performance in the 1983 classic Local Hero. The same year, Capaldi met actress Elaine Collins when they toured together with the Paines Plough Theatre Company. They would marry in 1991 and have a daughter, Cecily. Further movie credits during the Eighties included the critically-lauded Dangerous Liaisons with Glenn Close and John Malkovich, and Ken Russell's adaptation of The Lair Of The White Worm starring Hugh Grant. Capaldi's television debut came in a 1984 episode of Crown Court, and he could also be seen in shows like Minder, Up Line and Rab C Nesbitt.

In 1992, Capaldi both scripted and starred in the movie Soft Top Hard Shoulder. The following year, he wrote and directed the Oscar-winning short film Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life, starring Richard E Grant. Other cinema roles during the decade came in Smilla's Sense Of Snow and Bean, but it was television which occupied much of Capaldi's time during the Nineties. He could be seen in everything from Mr Wakefield's Crusade and Chandler & Co to Prime Suspect and The Crow Road; a cult favourite was his turn as the Angel Islington in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

Capaldi's first major project of the new century was the script for Strictly Sinatra, which also marked his debut as a feature film director. Television roles in the early part of the decade included Fortysomething, Sea Of Souls and Foyle's War. Then, in 2005, he attracted a legion of fans with his portrayal of the foul-mouthed political operative Malcolm Tucker in Armando Iannucci's The Thick Of It. Capaldi appeared in all four seasons of the show, and reprised his role for the 2009 movie spin-off In The Loop. Amongst his other television work during this period were Waking The Dead, Skins and The Devil's Whore. Capaldi also fulfilled a lifelong ambition by guest-starring in Doctor Who, appearing as the Roman trader Caecilius opposite the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, in 2008's The Fires Of Pompeii. The next year, he returned to the worlds of Doctor Who as the tragically conflicted civil servant John Frobisher for Children Of Earth, the searing story which comprised the entirety of spin-off series Torchwood's third season.

During the early 2010s, Capaldi could be seen on television in programmes like The Nativity, The Hour and The Musketeers, as well as The Cricklewood Greats, which he also directed and co-wrote. On the silver screen, he had a small role in World War Z -- for which his character's association with the World Health Organisation ironically saw him credited as “WHO Doctor” -- and more significant parts in The Fifth Estate and Paddington. Then, amidst the celebrations of Doctor Who's fiftieth-anniversary year in 2013, the BBC broadcast an extraordinary live special on August 4th, which culminated in the announcement that Capaldi had been cast as the Twelfth Doctor.

Capaldi tantalised audiences with a cameo appearance in the golden anniversary special, The Day Of The Doctor

Although his predecessor, Matt Smith, would not be exiting Doctor Who until the end of the year, Capaldi tantalised audiences with a cameo appearance in the golden anniversary special, The Day Of The Doctor. His proper debut as the Twelfth Doctor came at the end of that year's Christmas special, The Time Of The Doctor, and his first full adventure followed in 2014's Deep Breath. Far from ignoring Capaldi's previous appearance in Doctor Who, the new Doctor's physical similarity to Caecilius instead became a plot point, as his first season explored questions about the Doctor's fundamental motives.

Perhaps more than any incarnation which preceded him, Capaldi's Doctor evolved during his tenure on the programme. Guided by showrunner Steven Moffat and influenced on-screen by companions Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) and Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie), the Twelfth Doctor incrementally shed the aloofness and hostility which initially defined him, revealing himself to be a hero driven by kindness and compassion. In the 2015 premiere, The Magician's Apprentice, he was shown to boast Capaldi's own prowess with the guitar. The same year's penultimate episode, the groundbreaking Heaven Sent, challenged the actor with a labyrinthine Moffat script which effectively featured no other speaking parts. In 2016, he appeared as the Doctor in For Tonight We Might Die, the premiere installment of the short-lived spin-off series Class. And for several episodes of Doctor Who's 2017 season, Capaldi's Doctor faced an unprecedented physical challenge, as he coped with blindness following the events of Jamie Mathieson's Oxygen.

Like Tennant and Smith before him, however, Capaldi elected to leave Doctor Who after three seasons, departing alongside Moffat in the 2017 Christmas special Twice Upon A Time. He wrapped up the decade with Iannucci's movie adaptation of The Personal History Of David Copperfield and an appearance in the music video for Someone You Loved, the breakout hit for his distant cousin, Lewis Capaldi. During the Twenties, Capaldi joined the growing list of Doctor Who alumni who made the jump to American super-hero movies, with a villainous turn as the Thinker in the anarchic The Suicide Squad. During its filming, Capaldi began working on songs for what would become his first album, 2021's St Christopher.