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Matt Smith Welcomed Jodie Whittaker To Doctor Who In An Odd Way

Since Jodie Whittaker was announced as the Thirteenth - and first ever female - Doctor last month, the stars of Doctor Who past and present have come forward to congratulate her. That includes former Doctors like David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Colin Baker and ex-companions such as Karen Gillan and Jenna Coleman. Perhaps the award for the most unique welcome message, though, has to go to the Eleventh Doctor himself, Matt Smith.

Since Jodie Whittaker was announced as the Thirteenth – and first ever female – Doctor last month, the stars of Doctor Who past and present have come forward to congratulate her. That includes former Doctors like David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Colin Baker and ex-companions such as Karen Gillan and Jenna Coleman. Perhaps the award for the most unique welcome message, though, has to go to the Eleventh Doctor himself, Matt Smith.

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While attending a Q&A panel with his former Doctor Who co-star Karen Gillan at Boston Comic-Con, Matt revealed that he left Jodie Whittaker a voicemail message on her phone after he found out. He decided not to congratulate her in words, but instead reeled off an a capella version of the Doctor Who theme song.

If you want to experience it for yourself, you’re in luck, as Twitter user @impossiblynikki shared a video of Matt reliving the incident:

Smith went on to talk about how he knows what Whittaker must be feeling right now, as he’s been in the same strange position of being named as the next Doctor with months to go before appearing as the character on screen.

“People did just sort of shout ‘Don’t break it!’ And I thought ‘Oh God.’ And in England particularly there’s a lot of weird…there’s a lot of hysteria that surrounds it. Like, it makes the 6 o’clock news, all the big news shows. It’s a very strange feeling.

I remember that feeling of being, I don’t know, judged before you’d done anything. And only in the world of Doctor Who does that happen. Once you’re part of the family, you’re in, but then it’s like you’re an alien.”

If you’re wondering how Smith managed to find out that Whittaker was the next Doctor before it was officially announced, it turns out that he shamelessly used his status as a former Time Lord to get the info out of the BBC:

“I was literally – I was phoning people high up at the BBC going, ‘You have to tell me who it is. There’s a week to go, I want to know.'”

Jodie Whittaker makes her Doctor Who debut in this year’s Christmas special, and for a taste of what’s in store, be sure to check out the preview below.