Steven Moffat wants a more diverse Doctor Who cast, starting with The Doctor

Steven Moffat may be leaving his Doctor Who showrunning duties behind, but before he goes, he wants to see a more diverse cast. At least, that’s what he tells Doctor Who Magazine in a new interview (via BBC News), in which he also claims that a “black actor” was offered the role of the Doctor himself. Moffat won’t disclose who that person was, he just says that the casting didn’t work out for “for various reasons.” But that setback hasn’t kept him from wanting to add more actors of color to the main cast of Doctor Who (which is the name of the show, not the character, BBC News. Ahem). Moffat says that the show needs to “do better” and include greater representation of people of color.

Moffat notes that Doctor Who’s time-traveling premise, which often takes the Time Lord and his companion(s) to the past, might have previously prevented the show from featuring a black Doctor, who would have a tougher time moving about Victorian England, for example. That’s something that was alluded to in “The Shakespeare Code,” when Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) met William Shakespeare. However, he doesn’t think “there’s ever been a problem with making the Doctor black, which is why it should happen one day.”