Peter Capaldi  is an Academy Award and BAFTA award winning Scottish actor and film director.

On Sunday 4th August 2013 it was announced he will take on the role of the Twelfth Doctor.

Capaldi has already appeared in Doctor Who when, in 2008, he played a fictional version of Caecilius in "The Fires of Pompeii". He returned to the Doctor Who franchise in 2009, playing civil servant John Frobisher in the third series of Torchwood. 

Capaldi is best known for playing political spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in the British TV comedy series The Thick of It and the affiliated feature film In the Loop. In 2006, Capaldi was nominated for the BAFTA and RTS Best Comedy Actor Awards. He won the 2010 BAFTA Television Award for Male Performance in a Comedy Role. He also won the 2010 British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actor.

Capaldi was born in Glasgow. His mother's family was from Killeshandra, County Cavan, Ireland, and his father's family is from Picinisco, Italy. Capaldi was educated at St Teresa's Primary School in the city's Possilpark district, St Matthew's Primary School in Bishopbriggs and at St Ninian's High School, Kirkintilloch, before attending the Glasgow School of Art.

Capaldi has appeared in over forty films and television programmes since his appearance as Danny Oldsen in Local Hero (1983). He had a lead role in Ken Russell's The Lair of the White Worm (1988) and in Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (1988). 

In 1995 Capaldi won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, which was tied with fellow nominee Trevor thus leading to both films being announced as joint winners. 

He played Chief Petty Officer Grieves in the BBC Radio Ministry of Defence Comedy Our Brave Boys. His first starring role on television was as Luke Wakefield, a closet gay man who imagines he has witnessed a crime, in the BBC drama series Mr Wakefield's Crusade.

Capaldi played fictional Songs of Praise producer Tristan Campbell in two episodes of the sitcom Vicar of Dibley and a transvestite in ITV's Prime Suspect 3. In Channel 4's 1999 series "Psychos", he played a mathematician with bipolar disorder. He made an appearance in the hit sitcom Peep Show as a university professor, starred in Aftersun with Sarah Parish, and played a prime suspect in the 2007 series of Waking the Dead. In the Neil Gaiman gothic fantasy Neverwhere he portrayed the Angel Islington.

In 2007 Capaldi appeared as Mark Jenkins (Sid Jenkins' dad) in the E4 teen comedy/drama Skins where he returned for a second series in 2008 only to be killed off in the 3rd episode, and as characters in the Midsomer Murders episode "Death in Chorus" and ITV1's Fallen Angel. He also appeared in the British Comedy film Magicians.