Arthur Darvill isn’t a stranger to TV time travel, but he’s never been at the helm of a vehicle zipping back to 1980s Russia or forward to an apocalyptic future.
For three seasons of “Doctor Who,” Darvill starred as Rory Williams, the 11th Doctor’s reluctant companion in the British sci-fi hit. Rory and his wife, Amy Pond, sped through space and time with the Doctor aboard his police box-shaped TARDIS.
Now the English actor is playing Rip Hunter, a Time Master who pilots a time ship he calls the Waverider in the comic-book inspired “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” airing Thursdays on The CW.
The similarities of the two time travelers are not lost on Darvill.
“Obviously there is the time travel element and I’m an Englishman in a long coat. So there are parallels,” Darvill said. “When I got offered the job my concern was that it would be too similar. Then I got the scripts and it was not. It is very different.”