When Matt Smith appeared with musical legends Orbital on stage at Glastonbury just weeks after his first appearance in Doctor Who, he garnered a lot of respect from some sceptics. The band has recently spoken about the collaboration and how it came about, describing their first meeting with the actor.
Matt Smith surprised Orbital fans at the hugely popular Glastonbury music festival by appearing on stage to introduce the band’s famous cover of the Doctor Who theme tune. He also tried his hand at playing the song, stealing the show from supposed festival-headliners Gorrillaz.
In case you’ve been living in an alternative universe (or just live outside of Britain and can’t get around the bizarre BBC content filters) for the last two years, check out footage of the collaboration below.
Now, in a brand new interview with Digital Spy, band-member Paul Hartnoll discussed how the cameo came about.
I was approaching the fridge to go and get a beer, and I thought ‘That bloke in front of me looks like Doctor Who’. We were only three episodes in [to series five] at this point. It was dark, and he opened the fridge and the light spilled out on to his face, and I thought ‘F**k me, it is Doctor Who!’
I tapped him, and I said, ‘Excuse me, are you Doctor Who?’. He just turned round to me with the biggest grin and said, ‘Well actually, yes I am’. That was just it. I said, ‘Oh hello, my name’s Paul Hartnoll from a band called Orbital’. He said ‘Oh god, you’re the band who did the theme tune! Oh my god we all talk about that on set, we love that, oh, that’s brilliant!’
We just had a beer together and a chat and he said ‘Oh, I’d love to come on stage and introduce you one time’. Our lighting guy who was with us said, ‘Why don’t you come on at Glastonbury?’ He sort of flipped out and said, ‘Oh my god, I’ve never been to Glastonbury, that’d be brilliant’.
Article Continues BelowSo we just kept in touch. He said if you can get me and five friends into Glastonbury, I’ll do it, so we did. He had a great time. That was brilliant. He was absolutely peaking.”
We particularly find it interesting to learn that the Doctor Who cast and crew are fans of the remix, which has been incredibly popular amongst sci-fi and music fans since its release in 2001 – four years before the show was revived with Christopher Eccleston in the main role.
Do you like the remix? Would you like to see Matt Smith and Orbital collaborate again? Is it annoying that Hartnoll calls The Doctor Doctor Who?
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