Doctor Who is “doing the right thing” if people think it is too woke, its new star has claimed.

Varada Sethu will take on the role of the Doctor’s companion, alongside Ncuti Gatwa as the Time Lord.

“Ncuti was like, ‘Look at us. We get to be in the Tardis. We’re going to p— off so many people’,” Sethu told Radio Times, referring to their skin colour.

“There’s been a couple of Doctor Woke [references] or whatever, but I just think we’re doing the right thing if we’re getting comments like that.

“‘Woke’ just means inclusive, progressive, and that you care about people. And, as far as I know, the core of Doctor Who is kindness, love and doing the right thing.”

Sethu, 32, appeared in the last series in a guest role, playing an Anglican Marine called Mundy Flynn in the war-themed Boom episode.

Showrunner Russell T Davies thought Sethu and Gatwa had so much on-screen chemistry, he cast her as Belinda Chandra, the new companion.

Sethu said her character would be more than a mere sidekick.

“We really are equals in the way that we interact with each other. Russell wanted someone who can push back and not be in awe of this all-powerful being,” she said of Belinda’s relationship with the Doctor. Belinda is “the main character of her own story”.

The daughter of two Indian doctors who moved to Newcastle upon Tyne when she was a child, Sethu entered and won the Miss Newcastle contest aged 18 “to p— off my mum” after being scouted in a shopping centre.

“The pageant world doesn’t align with my values. But it did give me the confidence to throw myself into acting,” she said.

She began a veterinary degree but realised that acting was her true calling and convinced her father to let her downgrade to a three-year physiology course while looking for acting roles.

Before she was cast in Doctor Who, Sethu was best known for her role in Andor, the Star Wars spin-off for Disney+.

There have been persistent rumours that Gatwa will leave the show at the end of the second series amid doubts over its future, with Disney bosses said to be unhappy with the returns on their multimillion-dollar investment.

The BBC signed a $100 million deal with Disney in 2022, but ratings for the first two series were underwhelming.

Davies was criticised for placing too much focus on identity politics.

In an interview last year, he conceded that audience figures for series 14 “might not be the ratings we love” but said the show was a success with the under-30s.

“I was brought back in to bring in a youthful audience. That’s been massively successful. Those figures are astronomic for Doctor Who,” he said.