Neil Patrick Harris Didn’t Even Know What ‘Doctor Who’ Was When He Agreed To Star In New Special: ‘Never Heard Of It’

Landing Neil Patrick Harris as the classic Doctor Who villain The Toymaker seemed like a major casting coup when the announcement was made last year. Pairing Harris with David Tennant was a match made in heaven for fans. However, showrunner Russell T. Davies has since shared a hilarious piece of trivia as Harris’ episode gets ready to stream on Disney+: The actor had no idea what the show was or even about.

“He’d never heard of it in his life, bless him,” Davies laughingly said while revealing how we was able to lock down Harris for the role.

Via Entertainment Weekly:

“I was lucky enough to work with the great man on a show called It’s a Sin, about the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, and working with him was such a joy. The Toymaker, he’s kind of the god of games, so he shuffles cards, he does magic tricks, and all of that fits Neil Patrick Harris. If you go through agents, they often tell you to go away. I was able to send just a text saying, ‘Do you fancy reading this’ He read it and literally phoned me up going, ‘Let me get this right, so the Doctor’s an alien, right’ I was like, ‘Oh my god, you really have never heard of Doctor Who!’ But he couldn’t resist it, and he came to Cardiff, and we had the most spectacular time.”

Tennant concurred that Harris was a quick study.

“Oh, he’s good,” Tennant told EW. “I don’t quite know if he knew what to expect, but he dived in with such gusto and brio. This part requires a lot of skill sets and Neil turns up with them all. I don’t want to give away too much about what might be required of the Toymaker, but you need a sort of an all-round entertainer to play that part and a very good actor.”

The third Doctor Who special episode, “The Giggle,” starring Neil Patrick Harris streams December 9 on Disney+.