'I don't even know her name!' Doctor Who's new companion Jenna-Louise Coleman talks about landing the coveted role
By Georgina Littlejohn
PUBLISHED: 10:47 EST, 27 March 2012 | UPDATED: 03:33 EST, 28 March 2012
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A few days ago she was revealed as the new Doctor Who companion who will take over from Karen Gillan.
But actress Jenna-Louise Coleman has said that her casting has been shrouded in so much secrecy that she doesn't even know her name.
Eagle-eyed viewers will recognise Coleman as the first class servants' maid on the Julian Fellowes's adaptation of Titanic, which started on ITV on Sunday night.
And last week she was confirmed as Matt Smith's new assistant who will join the Tardis later this year - but she said the whole process has been very secretive.
Speaking to the Radio Times, she said: 'I wasn’t allowed to say it was Doctor Who at any point - not talking to my agent, not when I arrived at the audition, and I certainly couldn’t tell anyone at all what I was up to next.
'When she was auditioning, Karen Gillan had been given a codename - Panic Moon, which is an anagram of Companion - so I worked out that Men on Waves is an anagram of Woman Seven, because this is the seventh series.
'Weirdly, seven is my lucky number and this is my seventh job.'
And she said her audition was like no other she had even been to, adding: 'Normally you’re just reading in front of a camera, but with this, it was so physical. We were using props and running around so it felt like playing - and like a partnership straightaway.
The interview with Jenna can be seen in this week's Radio Times
The interview with Jenna can be seen in this week's Radio Times
'I have an idea of the story, of the character and of a few surprises, but I don’t know her name or where she’s from. I just told Steven [Moffat] and [producer] Caroline Skinner, "Don’t tell me anything until I need to know it".'
Coleman, who is best known for best known for playing Emmerdale’s Jasmine Thomas and Waterloo Road’s Lindsay James, begins filming her scenes in May.
And she said she's so happy she doesn't have to keep it secret any more.
She said: 'When you keep a secret this big – I’ve kept this one for six weeks – the temptation to tell is all the more irresistible, especially as I live with three schoolfriends.
'With girl politics the way they are, I couldn’t tell just one friend. I had to phone one of them on the way to the press conference to tell her that I’d borrowed her shoes, in case she saw them in photos.'
And she is also delighted that she is no longer out of work because after starring in Emmerdale and Waterloo Road she was rejected by Rada and didn’t work for a year believing she'd been labelled a 'soap actress'.
'It’s very easy for people to put you in a box, and I’ve been fighting very hard against that.'
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