(Photo: Getty Images)
The wait is over! It's been announced that Ncuti Gatwa will succeed Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor when Russell T Davies returns as Doctor Who showrunner next year. To whet your appetite, we've rounded up 10 things you may not know about Gatwa, who's best known for his multi-BAFTA-nominated role as Eric Effiong in Sex Education.
1. He considers himself a Rwandan Scotsman.
Gatwa was born in Rwanda, then moved to Scotland with his family when he was a toddler. "We came to the U.K. because of the genocide that happened in Rwanda in 1994," Gatwa recalled in the BBC's Black and Scottish documentary. "Landscape-wise, it [Rwanda] looks really similar to Scotland. We were refugees, we were refugees coming to the U.K. and I definitely now view myself as a Rwandan Scotsman – yes, there's such a term and I’m giving it a name today!"
2. He now lives in Tottenham in North London.
In an interview with The Independent, Gatwa spoke candidly about the racism he has experienced, partly because of his Scottish accent. "The amount of times I've almost been beaten up for saying I'm Scottish. It’s given me an identity crisis," he said. "People really cannot understand the concept of a Black boy in a tracksuit in London being from Scotland. People think I’m taking the piss. I'm like, 'Stop taking my Scottishness away. You don’t define me.'"
3. He graduated with a B.A. in acting from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
During his time at the Glasgow-based drama school, he appeared in productions of Twelfth Night, Three Sisters, Beauty and the Beast, and Tartuffe, among others. 
4. He has some other Shakespeare on his résumé.
In 2016, Gatwa portrayed Demetrius in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at London's Globe Theatre that was praised by The Guardian for being "entertainment and rowdy." A filmed version of the production was broadcast on BBC Four in the U.K. in 2020, and you can watch a clip of him in action here. 
5. He credits his mother with teaching him resilience. 
It's a trait that Gatwa says he has always "seen and admired." 
"I grew up with a single mum, an immigrant mum who couldn't speak the language, no money, three kids on her back, coming from Rwanda, and she’s done a sterling job with all three of us," he told The Independent. "I saw her struggle, I saw her fight all the time. Every day was another fight, and she always fought tooth and nail for all three of us. She just seemed to get through whatever hardship came her way. I think that's made me quite a resilient person. I look at my mum and I’m like, 'If my mum can get through that, I can get through this.'"
6. After he moved to London at age 21, he was homeless for a period.
In an interview with The Big Issue, Gatwa said that though he was "working constantly" in theater at this time, he "couldn’t seem to handle it all financially."
"I was supposed to move into a new place and it fell through," he recalled. "So for five months before Sex Education, I was couch-surfing among all my friends. I didn’t have a home. I was homeless. The only thing stopping me from being on the streets was the fact I had friends. But you can use up that goodwill. Or you feel scared to ask people for help. Your pride kicks in. So my life before Sex Education was so different."
7. During this period, he worked in one of London's most iconic stores: Harrods.
And Gatwa was definitely struck by the disconnect between his home and work lives. "I got a sense of how lucky I had been. I was looking at people, thinking, 'You are so lucky to be about to go home to your own bed,'" he told The Big Issue. "Then I was going to work to sell £7,000 perfumes. I couldn't believe I was homeless and working in Harrods – how many people must be going through this in London?"
8. Before he landed his breakthrough role in Sex Education, he was considering quitting acting.
Gatwa has said his audition process to play Eric Effiong was "very long," and believes he clinched the role by doing something unusual in the last round.
He told Backstage: "My final audition for Eric, I was reading a scene with another actor reading for Otis, and it was a scene where they were getting ready to go to Aimee's party in season one and Eric gives Otis a hat and calls him 'Hat Man.' I just thought, Eric needs to twerk now, and so I did. I’ve never done that in auditions before, and I don't know if I ever would again. But I looked at all the producers’ faces and they were all crying with laughter. And I was like, 'Oh my God! Twerking has booked me this job.'"

9. He is proud to have played a part in improving LGBTQ+ representation on screen.
Gatwa's Sex Education character, Eric, has been unapologetically queer since the very first episode. "We talk about the silliness and the fun of the show… [but] then you get a message from somebody in Saudi Arabia or Nigeria, somewhere where being gay is illegal or there is a death penalty or it's very homophobic, and you think, f***ing hell, this show is important because it really is educational," Gatwa told Attitude.
10. And finally, he has a cute nickname for his Sex Education co-star Gillian Anderson.
Namely, "Auntie Gillian." You can watch Gatwa and Asa Butterfield talk about working with Anderson below.

Are you excited to see Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor?