I think a lot about the 2005 Casanova. Specifically, I think about how it basically made David Tennant an overnight British TV sensation. Long before he was terrorizing Jessica Jones, investigating crimes in the seaside town of Broadchurch, and talking timey-wimey stuff in the TARDIS, Tennant was just another up-and-coming British actor. Starring in Casanova arguably changed that forever. Tennant showed off that he had an irrepressible charm and the makings of a leading man. Less than a year later, he would be cast in Doctor Who.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, today just happens to be David Tennant’s birthday. The Scottish actor is turning 48 years old, and rather than wax poetic about his time as a Time Lord or how good he makes Marvel’s Jessica Jones, I would rather shine a light back on the role that made him…him. David Tennant’s turn as Casanova didn’t just put him on the map, though. He was a feminist manwhore, the likes of which TV and film had never seen before – and haven’t seen since.

There have been many films and television shows dedicated to the legendary lover Casanova, but the BBC’s 2005 production is the only one that still feels timeless. Cheesy costumes aside, it’s the only take on the figure that casts him as a progressive figure. Instead of casting Giacomo Casanova as a leering pick up artist, writer Russell T. Davies imagined him as open-minded as he is open-hearted. The show is sex positive to the extreme. Female desire is given as much, if not more attention, than the male gaze, and Casanova is marked by a lust for life as opposed to just a puerile lust for the flesh.

Davies’s script might have prodded Casanova in this positive direction, but the character’s overwhelming charisma is all thanks to David Tennant. The actor’s unflappable eagerness makes Casanova someone you’ll root for even as you’re shaking his head at his shenanigans. Tennant gives all the character’s numerous sins a true sort of innocence. And it’s that innocence that you can’t help but fall for.

The show introduces us to Giacomo Casanova — here nicknamed the ever-so-modern “Jack” — in his rascally prime. In a madcap scene of derring-do, Jack dashes through the winding streets and narrow canals of Venice, on the run from an angry cuckholded husband. Casanova’s affairs are immediately framed within the trappings of Saturday morning serial heroism. And the comic monologue Tennant delivers marks this specific Casanova as a man who deeply loves women, and not just sexually.

“Just consider — you love your wife. I love your wife,” he says emphatically to the infuriated man chasing him. “Aren’t we both on the same side?”

Tennant’s Casanova sees women as equals. It’s a radical depiction of a man who could otherwise be cast as a sinful predator, using women and casting them off for his own gain. Instead, he’s a gleeful flirt kissing and stealing his way through life. He is seeking joy, not anyone’s ruin. Love is his drug and he’s always chasing the next high.

The show doesn’t stop there, though. Tennant’s best moments don’t come from his long list of hook ups. Those are either treated for comic effect, or to illustrate the character’s honest curiosity in the inner lives of women. Rather, Tennant’s Casanova does best in storylines that challenge conventional notions of love. There’s the brilliant episode involving Nina Sosanya’s gender-bending singer Bellino. Jack is stymied by his attraction to a castrado and believes he must be secretly a woman. Eventually, confronted with the reality that he might actually be in love with a young man, he accepts it. And then it’s revealed that in fact, Bellino is a woman…who took the mantle of a boy singer to seek a better life. It would feel like a cop out if Tennant himself didn’t emotionally commit to Jack’s decision to love Bellino no matter their designated gender.

So much of this progressive take on the character is thanks to the vision of Davies, and yet Tennant is key to pulling it off. Tennant plays the famous lover with a wit and a scrappiness that belies any sort of “game.” His Casanova never uses mind-games or threats, false promises or chauvinistic negging to win his lovers. He just enthusiastically wants to bone. And it’s Tennant’s warm, effervescent sense of humor that consistently sells it. He defangs Casanova, and in doing so, presents the portrait of a man who really could seduce thousands upon thousands of women, completely consensually.

When you watch David Tennant’s Casanova, you’re watching a masterclass in charm. He wears you down with clever quips and giddiness. He seduces women with earnest attention and keeps the viewer’s affections with his heartache over the elusive Henriette. He has the wit of a comic and the soul of a poet. He is a master seducer because he is an irresistible charmer. David Tennant’s performance in Casanova is a mesmerizing tour de force that shows off the range of an extraordinary actor.

And, yeah, he’s totally a fun, feminist manwhore.

Where to Stream Casanova