Peter Capaldi has said actors with posh accents “can make the acting smooth, which to me is tedious”.

The Scottish actor, 65, is best known for playing the leading role in Doctor Who and as the foul-mouthed communications chief Malcolm Tucker in satirical series The Thick Of It.

Capaldi told The Observer Magazine that “this business is full of people who are not the real thing” that sound like good actors due to “posh accents”.

He added: “There’s a kind of smoothness, a kind of confidence that comes from a good school.

“That’s what you’re struck by, they seem to know how to move through the world recognising which battle to fight, where to press their attentions but it can make the acting smooth, which to me is tedious. I like more neurosis.”

Peter Capaldi at The Devil’s Hour premiere in London
Peter Capaldi is in The Devil’s Hour on Amazon Prime (Ian West/PA)

Capaldi has portrayed uncomfortable characters including a murderer in Amazon’s Prime Video series The Devil’s Hour and in BBC One’s Doctor Who as the 12th Doctor, giving the alien hero a prickly personality.

He said he had “zilch” growing up and went to Glasgow School of Art as “the government of the day paid for me to go and I didn’t have to pay them back”.

Capaldi also said the current Conservative government “have been too terrible to make fun of” that he does not think they should be depicted in a series similar to The Thick Of It.

“I think they’ve been incompetent and corrupt and I’m not going to make jokes to give them time off,” he added.