One of the earliest casting announcements for the upcoming 60th anniversary specials was Yasmin Finney as Rose, the daughter of Donna Noble and her husband. Of course, Rose is named after Billie Piper’s character who travelled with the Ninth and Tenth Doctors and who we haven’t seen on screen since 2010. Or arguably 2013, depending on how you classify “Bad Wolf”.
While the extent of her involvement hasn’t yet been revealed, Yasmin Finney has spoken recently to magazine Elle about her casting as Rose and the pressure that quickly followed from the casting and announcement:
“It’s obviously got a lot of history, hasn’t it? To play a character with such history, even just the name, you’ve got that pressure instantly that I didn’t have with [Heartstopper role] Elle. It was a complete mind-blowing experience when I got cast. I can’t really relive it because I was so in the moment. At first, [the show] had a code name, and then I found out what the show was and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve just been cast in Doctor Who.'” It’s a trans character as well, and it’s such a blessing as well to be able to play such a monumental character like Rose.”
There have been a lot of fans on Twitter (sorry Elon; it will always be Twitter), who have been talking about Finney’s Rose as if she should be like Rose Tyler. Hopefully, people will remember that she is supposed to be a completely different character and that the name is possibly something that has slipped through the Doctor’s defences in Donna’s mind.
It also seems the secrecy around Doctor Who has been kept, in a similar vein to when the show came back and used the anagram “Torchwood”; it is weird though that it seems Yasmin didn’t know 100% what she was auditioning for.
Yasmin went on talk to Elle about how she is sharing scenes with Ncuti Gatwa, though the extent of those scenes hasn’t been revealed — some fans are nonetheless speculating that she might go on to appear in Series 15 alongside Gatwa and Millie Gibson. (I feel something like that would have leaked by now, given all the location photos and footage that have been circulating on Twitter.)
Finney goes on:
“You can look forward to a lot of scary things; I think when you think of Doctor Who, you think of the scariest episode, the Weeping Angels. It’s the scariest episode in history and the most popular. I think in this series, I was scared when I saw some of the things. It’s shivers down your spine. But, I can’t tell you too much. What I can say is it is going to be full of scares, full of laughs, full of all of it.”
The promise of some scary things happening is really exciting; Doctor Who has always had some really scary moments; for my generation, “Are you my mummy?” are the four scariest words in the English language! So it’s nice to know that the BBC has finally allowed the show to be scary again, one of the things that was mainly missing from the Jodie Whittaker era.
Yasmin Finney’s role is being kept under wraps for now along with many other things to do with the 60th anniversary specials but all these interviews we are getting with the cast seem to promise something big and exciting heading our way… and I can’t wait!
