New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club - Celebrity Fans

Celebrity Fans

The series has a devoted global following of people from a range of backgrounds.

Some fans have ended up working creatively on the television series. One of the most prominent examples is the creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the late Douglas Adams, who wrote or co-wrote several television scripts (The Pirate Planet, City of Death and Shada) and was script editor of the original series' seventeenth season. Adams had been a fan since the first season, and made two attempts to pitch a script for Doctor Who in the early 1970s before his first serial was commissioned. Both Queer as Folk creator Russell T Davies and Coupling creator Steven Moffat were lifelong fans of the series, and both in turn became head writer, or showrunner of the revived series in 2005 and 2010 respectively. Other celebrity fans have donated to the show in alternative ways. For example, the Panini publication The Complete Seventh Doctor (p47) lists singer Bob Dylan as a "great fan", such that he permitted his music to be used in the opening moments of season twenty-five without royalty. (Although Dylan's music was not in the event used). William Rees-Mogg, editor of The Times newspaper from 1967 until 1981, publicly declared his enjoyment of Doctor Who on an edition of the BBC's current affairs series Panorama in 1980. Prompted by this, the actor and dramatist Emlyn Williams admitted in the pages of The Times that he too was a keen follower of the series.

Celebrity fans include Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, comedians Frank Skinner, Jon Culshaw, Scott Adsit, David Walliams, Mitch Benn, Peter Kay, Mark Gatiss, Stewart Lee, Dom Joly, Matt Lucas, Chris Addison, Rufus Hound Toby Hadoke, Wil Anderson, Chris Hardwick; actors Benedict Cumberbatch, David Hewlett, Stephen Fry, David Duchovny,Tom Hanks, Eric McCormack, Simon Pegg, Bill Hader, Rob Lowe, Anthony Stewart Head, Steve Martin, Scott Bakula, Noah Wyle singer/songwriter Marc Almond, Will Arnett and Elizabeth Hurley; Simpsons creator Matt Groening, Inheritance Cycle author Christopher Paolini, Firefly creator Joss Whedon, voice actor Yuri Lowenthal, science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer, horror writer Stephen King, Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson, graphic novelist and fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, DC Comics writer Sterling Gates, 'Starman' writer James Robinson, comics columnist Rich Johnston, horror novelist Brian Keene, comics author Grant Morrison, film director Edgar Wright, playwright Mark Ravenhill, Star Trek star Patrick Stewart, Valve Corporation CEO and co-founder Gabe Newell and science fiction writer Harlan Ellison. Tenth Doctor David Tennant has repeatedly said that he has wanted to play the Doctor since he was a little boy, and has appeared in numerous Big Finish audio plays. John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and its spinoff Torchwood, is also a longtime fan. Craig Ferguson of the Late Late show is also a major Doctor Who fan. Rick Riordan is also notably a fan of the show, having referenced Daleks in his newest book, The Serpent's Shadow.

Peter Jackson and George Lucas are fans of the series. Steven Moffat states that Steven Spielberg "knows and admires the show", although Lucas states Spielberg is a fan of the original series and believes there's a lot of things missing to the new series that made the old one so great.

From the world of sport, cricketers Mike Gatting and Graham Gooch, footballer David Beckham, and from the music industry US heavy metal band Slipknot, Brian May of the UK Band Queen. Omar & Cedric of At the Drive-In/The Mars Volta, Jamie Lenman of UK band Reuben, Matthew Bellamy of the UK band Muse, Welsh hip-hop band Goldie Lookin Chain, Jon Spencer of the US garage rock group Blues Explosion, Florence Welch lead singer of the British indie pop band Florence and the Machine, singer Dionne Bromfield, pianist Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus, Paul & Phil Hartnoll of UK techno duo Orbital, singer and actress Toyah Willcox, singer Meat Loaf. South Park co-creator Trey Parker who has put several references to the show in several South Park episodes.

The son of Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, is a fan and Williams invited Richard Dawkins to Lambeth Palace in part because Dawkins's wife, Lalla Ward played the Fourth Doctor's companion, Romana. Novelist Michael Chabon is a fan of the series and has written about raising his family as Whovians in his non-fiction collection Manhood for Amateurs (2009).

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is also a fan of Doctor Who.