"I wanted to move him away from the RP (received pronunciation) for the first time because we shouldn't make a correlation between intellect and accent" he says, "although that still needs addressing".
The self-described working-class actor also says that cultural inequality is "much more pronounced" in Britain than it used to be, and that it would be difficult for a young actor with his background to succeed in the industry today.
No hard feelings here. We all wondered what was going on and probably shouldn't be surprised, it came down to class and identity politics. The Doctor can have any accent he or she wants, as far as I'm concerned.