Claim: Actors have played the Doctor.

The War Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor , the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television programme Doctor Who . He was portrayed by the English actor John Hurt . Although he precedes Christopher Eccleston 's Ninth Doctor in the show 's fictional chronology , his first onscreen appearance came eight years after Eccleston 's ; the War Doctor was retroactively created by showrunner Steven Moffat for productions celebrating the show 's 50th anniversary .   Within the programme 's narrative , the Doctor is a centuries-old alien , a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey , who travels in time and space in his TARDIS , frequently with companions . When the Doctor is critically injured , he can regenerate his body , but in doing so , gains a new physical appearance and with it , a distinct new personality . This plot device has allowed a number of actors to portray different incarnations of the Doctor over the show 's long run . The War Doctor , not so named within the episodes in which he appears , is introduced as the incarnation of the Doctor who fought in the Time War of the show 's modern-day backstory . He was created as a result of a conscious decision of the Eighth Doctor , played by Paul McGann , to take up arms and become a warrior ; in accepting this duty , the War Doctor disowned the title of `` Doctor , '' and after the war 's end is viewed with disdain by his subsequent incarnations , who reclaim the title that the character is known by . In the 50th anniversary special `` The Day of the Doctor '' , however , the Eleventh Doctor played by Matt Smith revises his opinion of this incarnation after revisiting the final moments of the war .   In his original conception of the show 's anniversary special , Moffat had written the Ninth Doctor as having ended the Time War . However , he was `` pretty certain '' that Christopher Eccleston would decline to return to the role , which he did . As he also had reservations about making Paul McGann 's Eighth Doctor the incarnation who had ended the war , he created a never-before-seen past incarnation of the Doctor , which allowed him `` a freer hand '' in writing the story , acknowledging that the success of doing this would be predicated on being able to cast an actor with a significant enough profile .