Movie celebrities will certainly require to the red carpeting and customers to their displays Sunday for the British Academy Film Awards—typically called the BAFTAs—in London. Taking location at the Royal Festival Hall, this year’s event will certainly be held by star David Tennant.

First-time BAFTAs host Tennant, 52, is a popular Scottish star well-known for the Harry Potter movies, television programs consisting of Doctor Who, Broadchurch and Good Omens, and far more.

Apparently he’s not worried for his inaugural job, informing the Associated Press that he really feels much less stress as a star in the function than a comic.

Here’s 10 realities you might not understand concerning the prize-winning star in honor of his BAFTAs organizing launching.

David Tennant was originally a name

The star was birthed David John McDonald. He claimed throughout a meeting on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2018 that he needed to choose an additional surname when he was 16 and signed up with the stars’ union, which currently consisted of somebody with his name.

Tennant informed Corden he got ideas for his phase name by browsing a songs publication and is “sort-of named” after Neil Tennant of the British songs team Pet Shop Boys. David later on formally altered his surname.

He’s the child of a Presbyterian priest 

Tennant was elevated in Bathgate, a community in Scotland made well-known in the track “Letter from America” by Scottish band The Proclaimers, which Tennant’s web site claims is his preferred songs team, in addition to the Beatles. Tennant points out Paisley, a community near Glasgow, as his home town.

His papa was a neighborhood Church of Scotland priest.

David Tennant desired for coming to be a star as a kid 

According to his web site, he intended to be a star because he was 3 or 4 years of ages. 

Tennant informed the Guardian in 2011, “I know it’s absurd and precocious,” but said that he had a conversation with his parents about who the people on TV were, and when he learned they were actors, decided that’s what he wanted to do. He began appearing on screen before he was out of school.

Tennant is a seasoned Shakespeare performer

In 1996, at 25, Tennant joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. He’s continued to act in Shakespeare plays throughout his work in TV and film. In 2008, he played the titular character in a Hamlet run in London, tickets for which sold out in hours. A Guardian review of the show said Tennant was the “greatest Hamlet of his generation.”

Tennant returned to his theater roots in Dec. 2023, starring in a critically-acclaimed Macbeth production in London.

He was a Doctor Who fan before becoming the Time Lord himself

Tennant portrayed the 10th doctor in the popular, long-running sci-fi TV series Doctor Who from 2005 to 2010, returning for a reunion episode in 2013, and series of special anniversary episodes in 2023. He was voted “The U.K.’s Favorite Doctor” by Radio Times magazine.

Tennant informed the Guardian that years previously while in college, he created an essay on Doctor Who. “Am I as geeky as the Doctor Who fans? Yes,” he claimed.

Tennant was star-struck on the Harry Potter set

Tennant was introduced to a worldwide audience as the character of Barty Crouch Jr., a villainous wizard, in the Harry Potter movie adaptations. 

When asked in a 2018 Q&A whether he was star-struck by any other actors, Tennant reportedly said he was originally nervous to meet his Harry Potter co-star Maggie Smith, who portrayed Professor McGonagall, since “she’s quite an intimidating presence… she goes way back. She’s proper.”

“And I keep in mind being a bit worried of her and after that simply totally loving her. She’s excellent. And there’s absolutely nothing more scrumptious than Maggie Smith in a witch’s hat. Nothing much better.”

Tennant has a large—and well-known—family

Tennant wedded star and manufacturer Georgia Tennant, that was likewise his co-star in Doctor Who, in 2011. Georgia’s papa is star Peter Davison, that starred as the fifth physician in the hit BBC collection.

David and Georgia Tennant have 5 youngsters—Ty, Georgia’s child whom Tennant taken on, in addition to Olive, Wilfred, Doris, and Birdie. Ty, 21, has actually complied with in David’s footprints, starring in Tolkien, War of the Worlds, House of the Dragon, and most lately with their papa—and grandpa Davison—in a Season 2 episode of Good Omens.

David Tennant is likewise understood for his job far from the display

The star has actually long sustained the LGBTQ+ area, providing his voice to an anti-gay intimidation project back in 2012. Last year, on a podcast throughout Pride Month, he claimed, “You want your children to be accepted for whoever they are, whatever they want to be,” including that“we’ve all got to be fighting that fight.”

More lately, Tennant was discovered using a pin in the shades of the transgender flag that increases cash for an LGBTQ+ young people charity with its sales. He apparently informed Attitude publication while using the pin at the Rolling Stone U.K. Awards receive November that “we just need to banish the noise and banish the hate,” including that Doctor Who “has always supported the other, the unusual, the disenfranchised. That’s what that show’s about.”

According to a blog post on his wife’s Instagram account, among the pair’s youngsters makes use of they/them pronouns.

He is familiar with the BAFTA phase

Among his several distinctions, Tennant won the Best Actor honor in 2007 for Doctor Who at BAFTA Cymru (Wales) and in 2014, got a win for Best Male TELEVISION Performance at BAFTA Scotland for The Escape Artist. He hasn’t been chosen for any type of honors at the major BAFTAs, although jobs in which he’s starred have actually won leading rewards. At the BAFTA TELEVISION Awards in 2023, Tennant offered the prize commemorating the Best Feature.

Tennant has a policy for his BAFTA Film Awards organizing launching

Tennant informed Variety he kept in mind for his BAFTAs organizing launching after Jo Koy’s gaffe at the Golden Globes. “Don’t diss Tay Tay, I think is the lesson to be learned. I live in a house of Taylor Swift fans, so I know better,” he claimed.