In this special post, Team Tennant tells us why David Tennant should get your vote in our Celebrity Male Role Model Voters’ Choice.
Many British kids of the 70s would remember waiting excitedly in front of the telly for the latest episode of Doctor Who to come on. In Scotland, a young boy named David John McDonald was no exception. You could say he was just a little more ambitious than the average kid. By age three, he had convinced himself that he would one day play the Doctor in the world’s longest-running sci-fi TV series. In 2005, that same boy—now an accomplished classical actor going by the name David Tennant—successfully reincarnated into the 10th Time Lord on the BBC TV series. (Readers of Doctor Who Magazine would later vote him the ‘Best Doctor’ ever.)
Confident, optimistic, influential – words like these start the list of why we think David Tennant would make the best celebrity male role model for the cause against VAW. Not only does he leave a positive impression on you both on screen and on stage, he exudes a refreshing, spirited air about him in real life.
David’s budding career as an actor began with humble school productions. Saturdays were spent attending classes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. At 16, he became one of the youngest students to pass their audition. He spent the next four years at the Academy, graduating with a bachelor’s degree.
Despite finding wider fame as Doctor Who, David has described theatre as his “default way of being”. He performs often with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His love for theatre is reciprocated by his audience: David’s Hamlet won the 2009 Critics’ Circle Award for Best Shakespearean Performance and the 2009 Theatregoers’ Choice Award for The AKA Theatre Event of the Year.
Not only is David a role model in his professional life, his association with various charities speaks of a heart that cares. David is a celebrity patron of the Association for International Cancer Research. His mother, Helen McDonald, died of the disease in July 2007. He is also a patron of Headway Essex, an organisation that provides rehabilitative care to survivors of brain injury.
David is involved with Circle Scotland, a well-respected Scottish charity that provides holistic, community-based support to marginalised children and families. Says David, “I was blessed with a safe and happy childhood. It is unacceptable to me that any child in Scotland should grow up in poverty or neglect.”
With such an accomplished yet humanitarian background, we think David Tennant would make the best male celebrity role model for The Pixel Project. Why not vote for him right now? http://bit.ly/PixelVote