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SHOWBIZ

WHO WILL BE THE FILM STAR? DAVID TENNANT OR BILLIE PIPER

Billie Piper or David Tennant, the US will decide

Sunday February 7,2010

By Toby McDonald

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HOLLYWOOD is calling Doctor Who star David Tennant to play the Time Lord on the big screen.

The secret was revealed by Billie Piper, who played his companion Rose Tyler in the long-running television series.

Billie, 27, said in a radio interview: “I’ve heard they’re doing a film and I know they want David to do it.

“I think David’s slightly anxious that there’ll be some big American producers on board and that they’ll try to hijack the whole thing and cast someone like Johnny Depp.”

But David, 38, may be too busy in America. He recently filmed the pilot show for a US legal series, Rex Is Not Your Lawyer, meaning he had to turn down a lead role in a film about the early 19th century Edinburgh body snatchers Burke and Hare, in which he would have starred alongside Shaun of the Dead’s Simon Pegg.

His place as William Hare will be taken by Lord of the Rings star Andy Serkis, currently appearing in cinemas as rock star Ian Dury in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll.

Dr Who writer Steven Moffat has warned fans to expect deaths and “dark fairy tales” when the latest series begins this spring.

He has promised the drama, now starring 27-year-old Matt Smith as the Doctor, will be a lot scarier than in the past.

Steven added: “I’ve written six Doctor Who stories and haven’t killed anyone. But I have in the new series. I like the idea of telling stories to kids about terrible things in the dark and people who do evil.”

Meanwhile, Doctor Who and Torchwood writer Russell T Davies has been working in Los Angeles, writing a Torchwood series for America’s Fox TV.

This coincides with John Barrowman, 42, who plays Captain Jack Harkness, appearing as a guest star in Desperate Housewives, cast as the Wisteria Lane villain in the last section of the show’s current run.