Doctor Who season 15: New details on Varada Sethu character
As many of you may know at this point, Doctor Who season 15 will be bringing in another new companion played by Varada Sethu. Yet, for weeks there have been a lot of questions. Take, for starters, whether this would be a new role, or the same part that she played in “Boom” in season 14. Her appearance then was certainly a surprise, as no one seemed to know it was coming in advance.
One easy read on this entire situation is that the “Boom” role was meant to directly tie in to what she was doing in season 15 — but that is not actually the case.
Speaking in a new interview with SFX, showrunner Russell T. Davies notes that Sethu will be playing a new character, and she was actually cast based mostly on her performance in the aforementioned season 14 episode:
“I was watching, like, the fifteenth edit of ‘Boom’, loving her … Every time I watch her, I think, ‘God, she’s brilliant’, I literally think she’s brilliant. I used to watch her thinking, ‘God, what a shame we can’t work with her again.’ I was thinking, ‘Should we go back to the 51st century, could we meet her again?’ and then I suddenly went, ‘Oh, let’s just cast her again. We’ve done that before. Lovely.’
“The relief that went around the entire production and the BBC, everyone went, ‘Oh, great.’ It was the most instant yes you’ve ever seen. So she didn’t even have to audition. We then invited her to come in for a meeting, but she thought she was coming in to audition [laughs] and it was the other way round. It’s like we were auditioning. We were wanting her to like us so much that she’d want to come back! We had a great meeting. She was kind of amazed and delighted. Lovely.”
Davies notes that like with Ruby Sunday, Sethu’s new character will have an arc that lasts for the bulk of the upcoming eight episodes. There’s a lot to be excited about here, and Millie Gibson will still be back in some capacity.
Related – How much Ruby are we really going to get?
What do you want to see on Varada Sethu moving into Doctor Who season 15?
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