Six years ago Ncuti Gatwa was a starving actor on the verge of quitting the business. Now he is a bona fide TV star, having taken over the starring role in the legendary British sci-fi franchise Doctor Who. This came on the heels of a four-season run playing openly gay Nigerian British teen Eric Effiong on the hit Netflix series Sex Education and a role as one of Ryan Gosling’s fellow Kens in Barbie. Gatwa also recently played Romeo in a presentation of Shakespeare’s play for King Charles’s coronation, and he’s set to star in a London production of The Importance of Being Earnest as well as the upcoming film The Roses, featuring Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch.

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How did a Rwandan immigrant raised in Scotland find his way into the heart of Hollywood? “Actors, we are transformers by definition,” Gatwa says, radiating the same exuberance and vulnerability that make him so magnetic onscreen. “I think of myself as a shape-shifter, and I will shift into whatever shape you want.” We’re thrilled to have Gatwa as part of our 2025 Hollywood Issue. He spoke by Zoom from his home in London.

Vanity Fair: You’ve played a wild range of roles in the last couple of years in Sex Education, Doctor Who, Barbie, and now The Importance of Being Earnest. Is there anything you can’t do?

Ncuti Gatwa: When you look at the characters you play, you think, There must be something that made them think of me for this role. There’s a 16-year-old, a mortal alien, a doll, and a hedonistic 18th-century aristocrat. It’s quite a little array of my personality!

Were there times earlier in your career when you felt at risk of being typecast?

After season one of Sex Education, I spoke with my team and I was like, “The next thing that we do in the public eye needs to be completely different.” So we waited a long time before accepting anything, and then the next thing I did was Masters of the Air. But I was definitely worried about getting typecast, because when you have a character that’s known for certain parts of their identity, I think it’s hard for people to see past that sometimes.

Even if you were going to be typecast, there aren’t a lot of characters on TV like Eric in Sex Education.

He is just a really wonderfully written character. So if I was to play Erics for the rest of my life, that wouldn’t be terrible, but I do want to play everything. It’s more about me showing myself off than anything else! But yeah, it’s interesting to see how characters of color and of queer identities are being written now, not so much as supporting characters or humorous characters—they’re full-bodied.

It was amazing to see you go from that to Barbie. Was that the first time that you experienced the full Hollywood experience?

Absolutely. Oh my gosh, it was a real test of my imposter syndrome. It was very Hollywood in terms of the cast and the budget and the infrastructure around it, but it also felt very much like we were rehearsing a play. It felt very authentic, like we were shooting a little indie that meant so much to us all, but it’s this massive blockbuster. What more could you want?

How did you get over the imposter syndrome part of it?

I don’t think I did until the final, final moment. Even just a couple of hours ago, I got a Barbie phone as a part of a press kit and I thought, My God, I can’t believe I was in that film! I look at myself in it and go: Is that me? No, I don’t think I did get over it.

Was there one moment when it really hit home?

Maybe being at the Vanity Fair shoot? I’m trying my best to focus on what stories I’m telling and telling them to the best of my abilities, but it’s mad! It’s mad when your publicist sends you an email and it’s like, “Vanity Fair would like you on the cover.” That was a day of imposter syndrome, and I had to go away and listen to this little meditation thing on my phone. I was like: You deserve to be here. And then I went back in and I was very calm.

You talked about not wanting to play another character like Eric after Sex Education. Is it important to you to kind of defy expectations with the roles that you take on?

I like to think of myself as Madonna. I’m still reinventing myself! [Laughs] I like each role to be very different from the last, and I like to use all the tools in my kit as an actor that I’ve learned through the university of life and drama school and all of that. I’m such a people-watcher. Human beings are amazing and terrible and very weird. We are sooo weird. I want to play every single type of human.

Your Doctor Who has a lot of swagger.

When you’ve been around for thousands of years, you pick up a slight pep in your step. If you were getting the chance to be reborn and reborn and reborn and reborn, you’d get excited. And so curiosity and excitement were the two qualities I really wanted to imbue him with.

This is the age of Brexit and MAGA. Was there a racist, homophobic backlash?

I wouldn’t be the only Black lead that’s taken over a sci-fi franchise that would have received that sort of treatment. Unfortunately, those are voices that exist in sci-fi fandoms—but they’re not the only voices. I just remember feeling a lot of warmth and love, being embraced into a big nerd family. When we’re shooting Doctor Who, there are fans outside the studio or on location every single time, be it at 4 a.m., be it minus-12 degrees. I think that’s beautiful, what the show means to them, so I concentrate on that more than anything. I don’t want to invalidate the very real thing that is racism, homophobia. I don’t act as if they don’t exist or they don’t affect me. They do. But I try to pay it no mind and look at the many, many positives that came from joining the Whoniverse.

In the US, there was a point after George Floyd’s death when many in Hollywood promised there would be real systemic change, but some in the industry see backsliding already.

Unfortunately, we still see many things as trends and as fashions. And what we’re trying to say is that we’re human and we’re here to stay, and our stories and our voices deserve to be heard. But that conversation kind of feels old now. How long can we keep saying that?

You’re in the upcoming movie The Roses, which is Jay Roach’s reimagining of The War of the Roses with Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman. That is pretty good company.

Oh my God. Olivia Colman is a dream. She’s exactly how you’d imagine her to be, like the best friend that we all want to have. It’s effortless how she leads the set and how she goes from being herself to being in character—everything is effortless. It was so nice working with someone as cool and as chill as that. There was one afternoon that she ordered scones and jam and crumpets and cream and taught me and [costar] Sunita Mani how to have scones and tea properly, like the queen. It was a glorious afternoon. I couldn’t believe that they had never worked together, Colman and Cumberbatch, because the chemistry is just off the charts.

Can you tell me anything more about your character?

I was about to start, and I was like, Ncuti, you’re not allowed to say anything! He’s Olivia Colman’s right-hand man in certain ways. It’s outrageous, but beautifully transitioned into 2024. It is dark and it’s scary and it’s fun.

So you went from being on set with Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie to being sandwiched between Cumberbatch and Colman.

It’s a nice sandwich; I hope to be in many more sandwiches. Oh, Cumberbatch! Benedict is…what a dream. The things I want to say about that man, I don’t think are appropriate. What a handsome and charming, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely man. He put me to shame. This man gets up and swims in the cold sea every morning.

You weren’t tempted to go sea swimming, even with Benedict Cumberbatch?

I mean, I was tempted. I was very, very tempted. But I thought, No, I’ll see you on set.

I thought you were a risk-taker.

I am a risk-taker, but one risk I don’t want is hypothermia, so I gave that one a miss.

One more thing: You mentioned a Barbie phone earlier. When you did the movie, did you get a Ken doll of yourself?

I did not get a Ken doll of myself. But watch this space.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. For fashion and beauty details, go to VF.com/credits.