‘‘I was unaware of what was going on around me,” admits Daphne Ashbrook, when DWM asks her how she came to be cast as pseudo-companion Dr Grace Holloway in the Doctor Who TV Movie. “I try to pay very little attention to what else is going on around me when I’m at auditions, but I’m sure they went through a lot of people for something as important as that.”
Following in the fine tradition of schoolteachers Ian and Barbara, streetwise teenager Ace – and everyone in between – Grace Holloway would prove to a strong identification figure for a brand-new 90s (not to mention American) audience. Did she realise the significance of the role going in?
“I had no idea,” she admits. “I was completely unaware of the legacy and fandom in the rest of the world. So I really walked in blind.