NEXT GENERATION LEADERS

11 trailblazers who are challenging the status quo, leading with empathy, and forging solutions for a brighter future

- NAINA BAJEKAL,JUSTIN WORLAND,YASMEEN SERHAN,CHAD DE GUZMAN,JEFFREY KLUGER,WILL HENSHALL,MOISES MENDEZ II,ALICE PARK,OLIVIA B. WAXMAN,KOH EWE

U.K.

NCUTI GATWA

Mold-breaking actor

WHEN NCUTI GATWA GOT THE CALL THAT WOULD change his life, he was walking into a London barbershop. The Rwandan-born Scottish actor froze as his agent shared the news: he had just been cast as the lead in the beloved British sci-fiseries Doctor Who. This wasn’t just another job—it was something that would cement his place in British cultural history. He told his agent he’d call back. “I hung up and didn’t think about it for a week,” he recalls when we meet two years later on a cool spring day in East London. “I was like: I’ve got laundry to do, I’ve got the gym to go to, I can’t think about this life-changing thing you’ve just thrown at me.”

Doctor Who, which has been running on and offsince 1963, is something of a national treasure in the U.K. Some of Britain’s most celebrated actors have played the Doctor, a time-traveling alien who explores the universe in a spaceship known as the TARDIS, which resembles an old British blue police box. The Doctor defeats evil creatures and rights wrongs across time and space—and can “regenerate” when fatally injured, allowing a new actor to step into the role. Though taking on such an iconic part was a no-brainer for Gatwa, now 31, it was also overwhelming. He describes himself as “an anxious, anxious mess” while filming: “My first day walking on set, I saw the TARDIS and it just hit me. This is the British TV program. I cannot fail.”