Peter Capaldi isn’t a fan of new superhero movies.
The 58-year-old actor thought the ‘Doctor Who’ Christmas special was similar in tone to the 1970s and 80s ‘Superman’ movies – which featured Christopher Reeve in the lead role – and he admitted he much preferred those films to the modern day Marvel and DC Comics big screen adventures.
Peter – who portrays the titular Time Lord on the popular TV show – said: "I like the early Christopher Reeves movies – [the special] is tonally quite similar. The superhero movies I have seen recently seem to be a little serious.
"Of course I loved ‘Batman’ when I was a kid, with Adam West and all that. When I was a kid that was absolutely huge. Everybody loved ‘Batman’ – ‘Pow!’ ‘Wallop!’ ‘Crash!’ and all that stuff. That was really exciting."
Peter revealed, too, that he would even shun comic books that were bought for him by his grandmother.
Asked whether he grew up reading comic book, the actor explained to SFX magazine: "I didn’t particularly. My granny used to bring me ‘Casper the Friendly Ghost’ comics … I guess we had TV21 and ‘Thunderbirds’ and the Frank Bellamy drawings and ‘Doctor Who’ in ‘TV Action and TV Comic’. That was more what I looked at, as opposed to American comic books."
The ‘Doctor Who’ Christmas special saw Peter reunite with Matt Lucas, who he relishes working with the comedian, despite likening him to an "alien".
He said: "Matt’s great, he’s very funny. When I see him on screen – and I don’t know whether he’ll like me saying this – Matt sort of like looks like an alien.
"In his comic work he has a very distinctive look about him but in ‘Doctor Who’ he genuinely looks like a creature from another planet, with his pale, sweet face and his clear eyes. I was quite amazed looking at us together. We look like a pair of strange alien creatures. Which is nice."