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‘Doctor Who’ Casts Actress Indira Varma For Upcoming Season

Indira Varma
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Actress Indira Varma returns to the world of “Doctor Who” with a new role in the upcoming season featuring the 15th Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa.


The Details

Varma will be playing a mysterious character called the Duchess. Not much is known about who she is except showrunner Russell T. Davies says “A whole new audience will be hiding behind the settee when the Duchess unleashes her terror.”

So apparently she is not a friend of the Doctor.

It also looks like she may also interact with the recently cast Jonathan Groff, as a “Doctor Who” tweet about him also mentions “the Duchess.”

This is not Varma’s first visit to the world of “Doctor Who,” either, as she played Suzie Costello for Davies in the spin-off “Torchwood,” which aired from 2006 to 2011 on the BBC.

Of joining “Doctor Who,” Indira Varma says: “I’m thrilled to be in ‘Doctor Who’ and particularly excited to be crossing cosmic paths with Ncuti, as the Doctor, and look forward to creating interplanetary mischief with him. I loved playing Suzie Costello for Russell T Davies in ‘Torchwood,’ so am thrilled to be entering this world again.”


About Indira Varma

Indira Varma graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, in 1995, and has sinced amassed quite a resume in both film and TV, as well as onstage.

She is best known for her roles of Ellaria Sand in HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” Niobe in HBO’s “Rome,” and more recently, as Tala Durith in the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series for Disney+.

In 2019, her stage performance in “Present Laughter” at The Old Vic theatre in London earned Varma an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

In addition to her new role in “Doctor Who,” Varma can next be seen in this summer’s “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.”


The Series

Starting in November 2023, Disney+ will air new episodes of the series in all territories outside of the UK and Ireland, where the BBC will still retain rights to air the show.

David Tennant, who played the Tenth Doctor in the early-2000’s, returns to play the Fourteenth Doctor is a trio of specials before Ncuti Gatwa becomes the Fifteenth Doctor, and Millie Gibson, his companion Ruby Sunday.

Other confirmed cast members for the upcoming season include Yasmin Finney and Neil Patrick Harris, playing undisclosed roles, and Jinkx Monsoon playing the Doctor’s unnamed nemesis.

Doctor Who” began in 1963 on the BBC in the UK, which means the November 2023 start date of the upcoming season also coincides with the show’s 60th anniversary.