Six things you might not know about Ipswich’s Richard Ayoade
Would Richard Ayoade make a good Doctor Who? - Credit: Archant
He is tipped as a possible Doctor Who, but how much do you know about former St Joseph’s schoolboy Richard Ayoade? Here are six facts of which you might not be aware...
Actor, director and comedian Richard Ayoade returns to St Joseph's College to do a workshop with pupils in 2015.
• Most people will know Richard Ayoade from Channel 4’s The IT Crowd, but did you know he was also in The Vicar of Dibley?
Ayoade appeared as Bernard in a Comic Relief Special entitled the Bishop of Dibley, which also featured Fiona Bruce and Ruth Jones.
• Ayoade has interviewed Andy Murray. His first question to the tennis star was ‘how do you spell your name?’
The interview from 2015 was in aid of the Unicef charity’s Children in Danger Summer Disease Appeal.
Ayoade also asked the current world number one: “What can we do to stop tennis spreading,” to which Murray replied: “Stop showing so many of my matches probably.”
• Richard Ayoade won a BAFTA (British Film and Television Awards) in 2014.
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He won the best male performance in a comedy programme for his work on The IT Crowd. He saw off competition from co-star Chris O’Dowd.
Collecting the award, he said: “I’m stupid, but not so stupid as to think this is to do with me. I’m just a kind of membrane through which Graham Linehan [the writer] was able to push his amazing brilliance through, with minimal resistance of my own lack of ability to express emotion in my face.”
• He has been in a Hollywood blockbuster – but never seen it.
He acted alongside Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill in The Watch, depicting a group of men fighting off an alien invasion in suburban America. When it was released he was filming The Double, which he directed, and was unable to stay later than 7pm at premieres.
• Last summer Ladbrokes had him at 6/1 odds to be the next Doctor Who after Peter Capaldi.
Working with the Daily Mirror, the betting firm also gave Miranda Hart odds of 8/1.
• He is famously shy, saying it would be ‘sociopathic to regularly do interviews’.
Given the worldwide attention that has focused on every actor who has played The Doctor, continuing long after they end the role, the chances of Ayoade wanting to play the role of the time-travelling alien are perhaps slim.
Vote in our poll on who you think has been the best Doctor Who.
Could former Ipswich schoolboy Richard Ayoade be the next Doctor?
