The first thing that strikes me about Georgia Tennant is that she is exceptionally self-aware. Born to Peter Davison, of All Creatures Great and Small fame, and American-British actress Sandra Dickinson, when I mention her childhood, Tennant quickly replies: “Both my parents are actors, so, a whole heap of nepotism. Let’s not pretend it’s not there.” 

She also happens to be married to one of the most successful actors of our time: David Tennant. Now parents themselves to five children – a couple of whom also perform – the industry has seemingly become so embedded in her life, it almost seems inescapable. Is that a good thing? Talking of her children’s ambitions, she laughs: “If it happens to be acting then I will get on board with that, but gosh, how nice it would be if it wasn’t.”

Rather ironically, we’re dialling in – Tennant from her car, as she awaits school pick-up – to talk about her own acting career, which has recently seen her reprise her role of Ash in the second season of The Horne Section TV Show for Channel 4. Created by comedian Alex Horne, and landing on screens tomorrow (22 May 2025), the series debuted in 2022 as a self-referential comedy combining elements of music mockumentary, chat show and sitcom – and it’s been one of Tennant’s most enjoyable projects to date. 

“Ash is the commissioner of the show and she might be a bit too young and inexperienced,” explains Tennant. “She’s constantly trying to help but actually scuppering things. She’s probably the baddie of the piece, but she’d certainly never think she was the baddie. She’s sort of a 14-year-old who’s been given a really important job and that potentially has quite dire consequences.” 

Now considering herself to be an actress who specialises in “half comedy and half drama”, Tennant’s appreciation for comedy – and where it fits into not only her career, but also the lives of the audience – is something that really drew her to this job. “I don’t know anyone else who thinks the way that [Alex Horne] thinks. He’s a weird mix of childish comedy and yet a brilliant wordsmith. I love it; it’s really fun, wacky, and there’s nothing else on the telly like it. It’s something I think will be really joyous in a time when we need quite a lot of joy.” 

Doubting her comedic chops, during the early years of her career, Tennant opted for more serious roles. “I did a show called Bonkers [in 2007] which was a Sally Wainwright show and I think it was the first time I realised I could be funny, and people thought I was funny. I think when comedy stuff came in, I said no [because] I thought ‘I’m a serious actress and I do drama’. I could cry really easily – which is basically not blinking – and when you’re young, you think if you can cry, you’re a proper actress. 

“There’s a way that Sally writes which means you have to speak her punctuation; you can’t ad lib, it has to be exactly what’s on the page. When I did that, I thought there was more to being funny than being funny; with the help of a script, director and cast, you can be one of those people. I think it gave me the confidence to get into comedy.” 

As far as stage and screen were concerned, though, acting was always on the cards for Tennant – even if her self-confessed nepo baby status didn’t always give her the helping hand one would assume. “It wasn’t so much as following in my parents footsteps; more like this is all I know,” she explains. “Although nepotism slightly worked against me at school because I think the teachers thought ‘I can’t give her a lead part’ because it will look like they've done that deliberately. I would always get fourth or fifth on a cast list; that sort of solid part so I could show off a bit but was very much kept in the box.”

Having landed her first job at 12, which led to her first agent, Tennant’s career took a turn when she got pregnant with her first child, Ty, at 17. “I had to work and [acting] was really the only thing I could do. I got some GCSEs but certainly not enough to go and get a job – I didn’t have any A-Levels – and I was only 17, but I could act. I started auditioning and luckily I got my first job within three months of having him.” 

Juggling the start of her career with motherhood when she was just a teenager was no mean feat – but Tennant believes, in some ways, she was somehow better prepared for it then. “In youth, you think anything is possible. The restrictions we put on ourselves definitely come with age and self-doubt. But, at 17 when I was pregnant with him, I knew I could do this. I hadn’t thought it through which was probably of benefit, but when I had him and then got a job, I paid for childcare and I went to work. 

“Now if that happened, I would be wracked with self-doubt; I’d find it far too overwhelming because I have the experience of life and have seen the ups and downs. I hadn’t really had many downs so I thought it was fine. It was a bit like going to drama school and learning on the job. When you first have a baby it can be quite lonely but I didn’t have that because I was with people all day long [on set]. It was definitely luck but it worked out.” 

She met her husband, David, on the set of Doctor Who in 2008 and the couple celebrated 17 years together this month – a long time to maintain their pact to keep their relationship very much out of the spotlight. “We didn’t make it more public, as it were, until it was so ingrained in its foundations that it was sort of impenetrable. When you’re early on in a relationship, you need to build the strength together away from all of that because it can be quite a lot when people have judgements. 

“I remember very early on there were quite a lot of opinions. If we had been aware of that in a loud way, it might have affected the way we were perceiving our relationship because of how other people were seeing it. We didn’t really talk about it [publicly], or get photographed anywhere, until we had been together for a really long time.” 

It wasn’t until 2015, when Tennant produced and starred in 96 Ways To Say I Love You alongside her husband, that they attended their first red carpet together at its premiere at the London Independent Film Festival. “[A few years later] we did Staged together; it was probably the first time we thought it was okay because we’d been married for like an eternity at that point. And I really liked working with him. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, I thought I would find it quite cringey or a bit exposing, but actually it was really fun.” 

With five children and high-profile careers, how do they balance their work schedules? “We have a lot of help. Just in terms of the amount of children and where they need picking up from at any given moment – often at exactly the same moment – I just don’t know how you would do that without some sort of teleportation device,” explains Tennant. 

“David is incredibly successful and it benefits more, in terms of the rest of our life, if he can work as much as he can. But in terms of my sanity, I also need to work too. It’s a balancing act between life versus enjoyment and practical application to our kids. It’s just about talking it through and making sure everyone is happy, and rebalancing it if people aren’t. I think it’s the same with every couple. Communication is key to any of it. Otherwise one person may get quite bored.” I imagine their joint calendars must be a dizzying sight? “We’ve run out of colours of things we can put on our calendar.” 

Inevitably, in the same way the acting bug rubbed off on her, it seems the Tennant’s careers have also inspired their children. Ty, Tennant’s first child whom David adopted when they married, is now an actor and musician – “he’s got two things that he’s good at, which is better than I did” – while their 14-year-old, Olive, is an actress and their 12-year-old has just featured in their first film. “Olive has only ever really talked about that. She’s very good at lots of things but that’s always been her passion which, talking to David, is very much how he was. I think all [our children are] slightly different in terms of what they are drawn to currently – Ty was not a child that always wanted to be an actor – so you don’t really know until their passions mature and evolve. 

“I’m certainly not one of those people that’s encouraging it because it’s not a sensible job to do, is it? It’s very insecure and you spend most of your time living in a state of anxiety. But I want them to be happy in whatever they decide to do because, ultimately, that’s the reason why they’ll want to get up and go to work everyday. I wouldn’t want them to spend most of their life doing something that makes them feel miserable.” 

Perhaps, though, they may follow Tennant into producing – a second facet of her career she admits is as equally important to her as acting. “I think I have two different personalities. I went to an event the other night and I introduced myself to everyone as a producer, even though I’m about to be an actress in something on the telly which, in that moment, would have been quite a useful thing to say,” she says, laughing. “Producing fits much better in terms of being with the kids and being more in control of my timetable; but then acting feels a bit more like I’m doing a crazy thing that I’m not in control of, and it appeals to another side of me. I wouldn’t want to give up either of them, and I think I’ve found a way where the puzzle works and I can do both.”

While she doesn’t mind being centre stage when she’s working, Tennant has not always enjoyed the spotlight outside of the job. “In the past year, I got a stylist called Sarah-Rose Harrison and, up until now, I’ve always found it quite difficult for stylists to really understand how uncomfortable going out is for me. The moment I met her 18 months ago, she understood immediately how awkward and self-conscious I was. 

“She’s then dressed me for everything since then. I basically want to be as comfortable as possible with as much of myself covered as possible, and I would instinctively always wear black. She will now only allow me to wear black every other outfit which is a comfortable compromise for me. I basically live in Ugg boots [while] an elasticated waistband and a non-underwired bra is my baseline from which I will just wear what I can find in the morning.”

Call it a cop-out but I always enjoy asking celebrities what the best piece of advice they’ve been given is – you quite honestly never know what they might say (or who they might name drop). Of all the people Tennant has met and worked with, however, the words she holds closest actually came from one of her children. “They were very young and said: ‘what I realised is kindness is the most important thing’. And I have repeated that back to all of my children since they were able to speak. I think that being a foundation for anything else you do in your life is all that matters, because we really, really need [kindness]. Remembering that that’s the most important thing will change the way you interact with the rest of the world.” 

The second season of The Horne Section TV Show lands on Channel 4 on 22 May 2025. 

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