Harry Potter: David Tennant’s 10 Best Roles (That Aren’t Doctor Who)

Yes, David Tennant is probably best known for his portrayal of the Tenth Doctor on Doctor Who, but that is far from his only important, memorable, or well-reviewed role. In fact, Tennant has been active on stage and screen since the 1990s. According to IMDb, Tennant has 127 screen credits to his name.

Furthermore, Tennant isn’t even fifty yet, so his filmography is destined to continue to expand. If you’re a Doctor Who fan, or just a David Tennant fan, here are the other performances that should be checked out as soon as possible.

10 Barty Crouch Jr. – Harry Potter

For those who didn’t first come across David Tennant in Doctor Who, then odds are they came across him in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth movie in the franchise. He was cast as the film’s real villain, Barty Crouch Jr., a devoted Death Eater, Azkaban escapee, and a key player in delivering Harry Potter to Lord Voldemort in the graveyard at the climax of the film.

From his scratchy self centered voice to his shifty eyes and that weird almost constant flick of his tongue, Tennant really used the small details to bring the character from the page into real life.

9 Giacomo Casanova – Casanova

Casanova was a 2005 mini-series where David Tennant played the title role of Giacomo Casanova. Tennant depicted a young version of the character, while the older version was portrayed by Peter O’Toole.

Known for his romances and his heartbreaks, Casanova was also something of an adventurer in the eighteenth century, as well as seeking his fortune around Europe. Casanova could be seen as flighty or simply not someone to takes seriously on the screen, but its Tennant’s performance that helps save the man and the series.

8 John Knox – Mary Queen of Scots

The 2018 historical drama is best known for starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie, but David Tennant also appeared as John Knox, a Protestant leader of the Scottish Reformation. He views Mary as a threat to Protestants and he goes about preaching that Mary is an adulteress to destabilize her power on the throne.

Tennant spends the film disguised behind a great brown and gray beard, so he is almost unrecognizable, except in the fact that his performance is both fabulous and convincing.

7 Scrooge McDuck – DuckTales

Tennant is not always disguised behind beards or makeup, but also behind animation. He took on the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney’s most recent reboot of the classic cartoon series, DuckTales.

Scrooge has never been a particularly loveable character, but Tennant does his best with a deep Scottish accent and a clear love for McDuck’s trio of nephews. In a cast that includes Danny Pudi, Ben Schwartz, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, he’s in good company, but there’s a reason Tennant voices the character the show centers around.

6 Spitelout Jorgenson – How to Train Your Dragon

While we’re looking at Tennant’s animated roles, his work as the number two in the Viking tribe in How to Train Your Dragon is particularly fun. Father to the arrogant Snotlout, who hassles Hiccup throughout the first movie, it’s a wonder that Tennant doesn’t spend more time yelling at his onscreen offspring than leading its troops as they encounter dragons and other dangers.

While a smaller role in the multiple movies in the Train Your Dragon series, Tennant also read a few of the Hiccup stories as audiobooks.

5 Peter Vincent – Fright Night

Yes, this is a vampire movie. No, David Tennant does not play the vampire. In fact, Tennant plays a supposed vampire killer, Peter Vincent, who is asked to assist in the capture and termination of a new vampire who has just moved into a suburban neighborhood.

Tennant plays Vincent with swagger, confidence, and sarcasm, which he certainly needs as (spoiler) he’s not actually a vampire killer, despite his bravado. Fright Night showcases a lot of Tennant’s humor, which is always entertaining to watch.

4 Huyang – Star Wars: The Clone Wars

In the last animated role featured on this list, Tennant voices a droid in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon series. This doid is special and assists in the education of Jedi younglings on the Jedi ship, the Crucible. His specialty surrounds the instruction in the building of lightsabers.

Huyang has been teaching Jedi for a thousand generations, which makes him pretty old (it’s amazing he hasn’t needed more upgrades). This also means that Huyang has taught the likes of Master Yoda in the art of lightsaber creation. Like C3PO before him, Huyang has a British accent, though Tennant doesn’t sound anything like Anthony Daniels.

3 Kilgrave – Jessica Jones

Like his Barty Crouch performance, Tennant can really sink his teeth into a good villain and it even looks like he is having some fun playing Kilgrave, the mind-controlling megalomaniac on the Netflix series Jessica Jones. Creepily in love with the super-powered Jessica Jones, Kilgrave hunts the investigator down in hope of forcing her into being with him once again.

Kilgrave tries to enhance his powers as he tracks Jones so that he may, once again, overpower her and bend her to his will. He’s incredibly creepy throughout the series, even if he, like all supervillains before him, falls to the powers of the hero in the end.

2 Alec Hardy – Broadchurch

A detective lacking in grace and social skills proved to off little challenge for the versatile David Tennant. He spent three seasons playing Detective Alex Hardy on Broadchurch, a crime drama set in a fictional British coastal town. 

Tennant starred alongside Queen Elizabeth herself, Olivia Colman, as they try their best to solve two difficult cases in the glaring spotlight of media attention and personal troubles. Tennant even won a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA award for his performance in the program’s first season.

1 Crowley – Good Omens

To truly see David Tennant having fun with a role, it is best to watch Amazon Prime’s mini-series adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s, Good Omens. As the demon Crowley, Tennant gets to work alongside the Angel Aziraphale as they oversee the upbringing of the Anti-Christ.

Hilarity ensues when Crowley becomes much more loyal to Aziraphale and the young Anti-Christ than Hell and its other demons. Tennant embraces the role with great effect.

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