Georgia Tennant: ‘The Pride flag feels heavier this June’

Georgia Tennant has always celebrated Pride with a bright array of rainbow flags in her home. However, the TV star admits the month is feeling ‘heavier’ than usual this year.

The former Doctor Who actress, who’s currently starring in the TV show The Horne Section, has become well-known among fans for her advocacy of the LGBT+ community alongside her husband, David Tennant. But in her opinion, the praise that they’ve received for their support is really the ‘baseline’.

‘Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were the default position? I want to do as much as I possibly can, and it’s lovely that people say nice things. But I’m also just like, please just let this be something that’s everyone does,’ she tells Metro.

The Tennants have been vocal in their support of the trans community and their firm belief in allyship, with Georgia sharing snaps on Instagram of their family celebrating Pride Month.

Georgia, 40, admits that this year in particular, the ‘fight’ that has been fought for years by the LGBT+ community is one that she can now feel in her home.

‘The flags feel heavier, but not in a negative way. We’ve got a job to do, and I’m not prepared to let what is seemingly happening happen. That’s not the world I want to live in. It’s not the world that my kids are going to live in. And I don’t think it’s the world that most people want to live in, to be honest,’ she says.

‘Sometimes people who shout the loudest are more prominent, literally, because they’re shouting the loudest. Maybe we all need to shout out a bit louder too.’

The actor and producer is trying to make her work more meaningful and is mindful about how her projects may progress the LGBTQ+ community.

‘I’m trying to commit to projects that I feel will be important for that community and that makes me happy too,’ she explains.

‘It’s hard being a mother and going to work anyway. But if I’m going to work because I know that I’m making, ultimately, my children’s lives and their future and the world that they’re going to grow up into better, then that’s fine.’

David, 54, recently received praise for his dignified response to J.K Rowling calling out his beliefs as a trans ally.

In 2024, he also told the then-Tory politician Kemi Badenoch to ‘shut up’ in his British LGBT Awards speech. This was in the wake of the Conservatives’ pledge to change the 2010 Equality Act, which ruled the definitions of ‘sex’ and ‘woman’ refer to ‘biological sex’, meaning trans women with gender certificates can be barred from single-sex areas.

While making the speech, David credited his wife Georgia as ‘the real engine behind anything we do, stating: ‘She educated me about empathy and understanding, and she has been a huge educator for me.’

In addition to being an LGBT ally power couple, Georgia and David are also – of course – the ultimate duo in the Doctor Who universe.

Georgia is not only married to the Tenth Doctor, but she is also the daughter of Peter Davison, who played the Fifth Doctor. In fact, in an odd twist of fate, she met her husband when she appeared as his character’s daughter Jenny in an episode of Doctor Who titled The Doctor’s Daughter in 2008.

David recently returned to the series to play the Fourteenth Doctor, with Billie Piper possibly set to play the Sixteenth incarnation of the Time Lord.

‘I think I’m the only one they haven’t asked back at this point!’ Georgia jokes.

‘Listen, with Doctor Who, there are no rules, and therefore there are no limitations to what may or may not happen. Since I did that one episode years ago, I’ve been a fan.’

Despite Georgia’s own dad being one of the Doctors, she only started watching the show after she appeared in it herself. Since her husband David’s second season, she’s become a ‘really big fan’ and hasn’t missed an episode.

‘I feel much more a fan than I am a part of the world as an actor. So I’m very happy to stay, as a fan,’ she states, before adding: ‘I would obviously not say no to a job!’

In her TV show The Horne Section, which has just returned for a second season, Georgia plays a character called Ash, a vape-puffing, wine-loving TV executive.

While she initially felt as though the character was a ‘reach’ for her, she quickly found a way to relate to Ash, realising that she ‘has no idea what she’s doing and very much suffers from impostor syndrome, which is something I can relate to’.

‘I decided I would play her like a sort of 14-year-old mean girl, because they’re either crippled with insecurity, or they have breathtaking confidence that they have not earned,’ she says.

Despite portraying confidence with a disarming charm on-screen in both The Horne Section TV Show and in the pandemic series Staged – which saw her play a fictional version of herself – she admits that people are often surprised to find that she is socially awkward in real life.

‘I think people think I’m much more of an extrovert than I am,’ she says. ‘So people will then meet me and they’ll be like, “Oh, you’re much more socially awkward than I thought you were going to be.”‘

She adds that this discomfort can sometimes lead her to share too much.

‘It’s the awful thing of wanting to be so authentic that you overshare. I do start conversations like, “Oh, I haven’t underwire bra for 10 years.” They don’t need to know that!’ she says with a laugh.

‘So it’s a constant struggle of going, I want to be open, but then that’s often misconstrued as confidence, when what it is, is social awkwardness and overcompensating for that.’

Despite her self-proclaimed lack of confidence in some parts of life, Georgia can take full credit for one of her husband David’s most recent roles, as she was the one who convinced him to join the cast of hit Disney Plus series Rivals.

‘I don’t think anything had ever hit me quite so confidently, but I just knew that this is what needed to be on TV,’ she shares, confirming that she was the one who told him he had to be in the show.

‘I just thought, “Oh yeah, this is absolutely what you need to be doing.” And he did need some persuasion because he’d not read a Jilly Cooper book, but I’ve never given an opinion on something he needs to do before. It’s the first time I’ve ever done it that I said, “You have to do this”.

‘So I think he thought, “Well, she’s never said this in 17 years. I should probably listen to her.” I knew people would love it. I thought, “You need to be part of this. If this is on the TV and you’ve said no, you’re going to be kicking yourself.”‘

His character, Lord Tony Baddingham, is the villain of the show andone of the more hateful characters played by David in his long career.

‘He does play a hateful character really well, though,’ Georgia quips.

The Alex Horne TV Show is available to stream on Channel 4.

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