Fans may have had trouble pronouncing Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa’s name, but don’t fret – even the actor did not know how to properly say it until he turned 26. Now, he’s educating people on how to say it the right way.
Gatwa rose to fame for his role as Eric Effiong in Netflix’s S*x Education series, and now he’s gracing the screen as the first-ever Black actor to star as the lead in BBC’s Doctor Who.
Ncuti Gatwa Teaches The Public How To Say His Name
In a recent Instagram video interview with costar Millie Gibson, actor Ncuti Gatwa revealed the proper pronunciation of his name.
My name is pronounced N-shoo-tee. It’s like a n (pause) shoo-tee. Only learned properly how to pronounce it at 26. When I started coming into the public eye I did this whole video like, ‘You pronounce my name Shootee, shoot like a shooting star, and then an E on the end.’
This immediately caught the attention of his mother who corrected the actor. “My mom called me like, ‘What are you talking about? That’s not how you say your name.’ ” The actor soon learned the right way to utter his own name. “I was like, ‘Oh! oh right, thanks for telling me, mom. At 26,” he added.
Born Mizero Ncuti Gatwa, the Rwandan-born Scottish actor knew he had some big shoes to fill when he signed up for Doctor Who. Amid the pressure of bringing to the small screen the tale of the Fifteenth Doctor, he also experienced extreme backlash. He told BBC:
From the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to bed, it’s anxiety, but people tell me that it means that I care. And I do, I love the show massively… It’s a prestigious role, which means that it is complex and difficult. And I’m just trying to do my best. Hopefully, I’ve done that.
The actor later on contemplated the show and how Doctor Who “reflects where Britain is at” as it is considered a quintessentially British show. It has been running on the small screen for decades, witnessing the evolution of time and society. For Gatwa, the series shows that we are “part of the cultural landscape.”
BBC’s YouTube Channel Incorrectly Transcribed Ncuti Gatwa’s Name
In a peculiar incident back in 2022, a subtitle failure on BBC’s YouTube channel autocorrected Ncuti Gatwa’s name and turned it into a swear word. Judging from how the actor pronounced his name, it was quite inevitable.
As reported by Yahoo! News, the subtitles on the video transcribed his opening line to “Hello, I’m sh—ty gatsworth.” Thankfully, the caption was already rectified.
Even technology found it complicated to spell out his name just as much as people had trouble articulating it. What’s even funnier is the fact that the actor never knew how to say his own name correctly until his mother got mad at him for mispronouncing it in public.
Doctor Who is available to watch on Disney+.
