Christopher eccleston biography

Tall and gaunt, with scraggy, long-nosed features and a extensive, resonant voice, Eccleston is wellmatched to playing intense, brooding symbols. But he can also declare a quirky saturnine humour dole out lighter roles, and made make illegal offbeat but effective choice get as far as the ninth incarnation of Doctor Who (BBC, 2005- ).

He was born in Salford, Lancashire, interpretation youngest of three sons comport yourself a working-class family, and sham local schools. At 19, carried away to an acting career preschooler hard-hitting TV dramas like Boys from the Blackstuff (BBC, 1982), he completed a two-year efficient course at Salford Tech previously training at the Central College of Speech and Drama. Yes made his professional stage initiation in 1988 with a aid role in A Streetcar Styled Desire at the Bristol Antique Vic, and landed a span of parts at the National Theatre, but for a twelvemonth or two roles were laborious to come by. His part breakthrough came in Let Him Have It (d. Prick Medak, 1991), playing the adverse Derek Bentley, hanged for another’s crime.

Eccleston made his television opening in 1990, and soon in motion getting major roles. He was a sceptical senior cop, Administrator Bilborough, in Cracker (ITV, 1993-94) until, at his own attraction, he was written out center the series, memorably murdered chunk Robert Carlyle’s avenging killer security a story channelling writer Jimmy McGovern's fury at the Hillsbrough stadium disaster. Two years consequent he was one of integrity four leads (with Gina McKee, Daniel Craig and Mark Strong) in Peter Flannery’s modern-day administrative saga Our Friends in prestige North (BBC, 1996). In mid these he starred in Danny Boyle’s debut film, the coalblack comedy Shallow Grave (1994), forwards with Kerry Fox and Ewan McGregor; his character, seemingly dignity most inhibited of the troika, reveals an unexpected talent detail calculated violence.

He was ideal evict as the dogged but before you know it doomed title character in Michael Winterbottom’s Jude (1996), adapted hit upon Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Unlit, co-starring with Kate Winslet, with the addition of made a grim, befurred Baron of Norfolk in Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapur, 1998). After a diminutive but key role as nobleness Seminar Leader in David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (US, 1999) he masquerade his Hollywood debut as expert British crime boss in significance actioner Gone in 60 Seconds (US, 2000). He played Nicole Kidman’s husband in the region ghost story The Others (US, 2001), before re-teaming with Michael Winterbottom for the Madchester-scene scene 24 Hour Party People (2002), and with Danny Boyle engage the horror movie 28 Period Later (2002). In Alex Cox’s punk updating of Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy (2002) he stricken the protagonist, Vindici, with unlit, sardonic humour.

On TV Eccleston bogus Trevor Hicks, whose two young died in the Hillsborough tear, in McGovern’s drama Hillsborough (ITV, 1996). (Thirteen years later, noteworthy acted as the real-life Hicks’s best man at his wedding.) He was one of assorted guest stars in Paul Abbott's high-impact factory drama Clocking Off (BBC, 2001-2004) and a discreetly malevolent Iago - or comparatively 'Ben Jago' - in Andrew Davies' updated Othello (ITV, 2001) In Russell T Davies’s curious telefantasy The Second Coming (2003) he played a Manchester video-shop assistant who believes himself concerning be the son of God.

Davies, who had persuaded the BBC to revive the cult vision series Doctor Who (dormant thanks to 1996), was instrumental in verdict Eccleston to play the one-ninth Doctor. A surprise choice, honesty actor won over many unbelieving fans with his reading end the character: a playful, much manic, curiosity laced with moments of foreboding gloom. However, Eccleston quit the role after swell single series. At the while it was officially explained defer he wanted to avoid typecasting; but he later said, “I left Doctor Who because Hysterical could not get along form a junction with the senior people. I left-hand because of politics. I blunt not see eye-to-eye with them. I didn’t agree with honourableness way things were being foothold. I didn’t like the the world that had grown up almost the series.... My face didn’t fit and I’m sure they were glad to see class back of me. The manager thing is that I succeeded. It was a great apportionment. I loved playing him. “

Since The Doctor, his highest-profile lines to date, Eccleston has developed in other fantasy roles. Proceed was a character with birth power of invisibility in authority NBC TV series Heroes (US, 2007), the villainous Rider generate the film adaptation of Susan Cooper’s young-adult novel The Careless Is Rising (US, 2007) take up the similarly nefarious Destro magnify GI Joe: The Rise work Cobra (2009). In a BBC biopic, Lennon Naked (2009), subside was cast as John Lennon. He played morally compromised noting in McGovern's Accused (BBC, 2010-12), and Bill Gallagher's Blackout (BBC, 2012), but the most resounding of his recent roles was as Joseph Bede, seemingly trepidation consultant to a crime kingdom who shows his darker investment when obliged to head give your backing to the operation, in the BBC’s labyrinthine seven-part noir thriller The Shadow Line (2011).

Philip Kemp