Yeah, as much as I love Kate Winslett and still wish she'll do Doctor Who (but seems less likely now), I'm glad she wasn't River because she wouldn't have become the wonderful recurring character that she became with Alex Kingston.
Eccleston: "Doctor Who Almost Destroyed My Career"
- Thread starter Allyn Gibson
- Start date
Well, she was in his first attempt at sneaking in a Who reboot, way back in the nineties....
Dark Season. Also..the first female Doctor, as Marcie is basically the seventh doctor stuck in the body of a teenage schoolgirl.
And David Tennant is also in that film in a small role.
So I see Eccleston is on the BBC yet again at the moment.
And Mr I don't do conventions is now, er, doing a convention and, and I've been to the last few of these events, not a proper convention, no this is primarily an autograph/photo op event (though there are talks) and the price he's charging is excruciating. Cumberbatch did it last year and he cost less, so I don't see how he can duck accusations of hypocrisy, just last November he was quoted saying he'd never done conventions and preferred to make his money from acting (to be fair he didn't rule it out in future).
I'm really hoping he smiles in the photos for that amount of money!
And Mr I don't do conventions is now, er, doing a convention and, and I've been to the last few of these events, not a proper convention, no this is primarily an autograph/photo op event (though there are talks) and the price he's charging is excruciating. Cumberbatch did it last year and he cost less, so I don't see how he can duck accusations of hypocrisy, just last November he was quoted saying he'd never done conventions and preferred to make his money from acting (to be fair he didn't rule it out in future).
I'm really hoping he smiles in the photos for that amount of money!
Pulling off a pretty convincing Belfast accent, IMHO.
Right. Just like the Doctor came back to Susan.
Well...he did. Only it happened in a Big Finish story. Honestly, that's the only place I would think Eccleston would return for anyways, so I think that allusion still works.
He did eventually in The Five Doctors. Not sure how much time passed for either but it was still his first incarnation.
Well, technically, he didn't really come back for her. They were forced to meet again, but definitely not by (any of) the Doctor's design.
I thought Playing Destro in the crappy GI Joe movie would have been worse then playing the Doctor for Eccleston..
Russel T. Davies has now addressed the issue directly:
Now Davies himself has responded to Eccleston’s statements, telling SFX Magazine that he does not want to get into a “tit for tat” with the actor and is keen to keep “respecting and listening to him at all times.”
“If it gets into any sort of tit for tat then I’m having a conversation with my lead actor via the press, and that’s not on,” Davies told the magazine.
“What has to be remembered when the show’s being discussed in the present tense, now, is that I was his employer – I was his producer. I have a duty of care towards any lead actor I work with, so I have a duty of care towards Chris in that moment.
“He’s free to say and explore whatever he wants – that’s fine. This duty of care involves respecting him and listening to him at all times.
“That’s my job. And that duty of care towards him will extend for the rest of our lives. He will always be my Doctor, and I will always be his producer.”
“If it gets into any sort of tit for tat then I’m having a conversation with my lead actor via the press, and that’s not on,” Davies told the magazine.
“What has to be remembered when the show’s being discussed in the present tense, now, is that I was his employer – I was his producer. I have a duty of care towards any lead actor I work with, so I have a duty of care towards Chris in that moment.
“He’s free to say and explore whatever he wants – that’s fine. This duty of care involves respecting him and listening to him at all times.
“That’s my job. And that duty of care towards him will extend for the rest of our lives. He will always be my Doctor, and I will always be his producer.”
Surprisingly respectful, though obviously not as warming, "all is well and no hurt feelings anymore" as some would've liked it.
Very classy (not in the Ron Burgundy sense), very high road. Which is going to make Eccleston look even worse if he keeps lobbing verbal grenades and trying to set off that tit-for-tat. Hopefully he'll accept RTD's statement as the peace overture it is.
I was at the In Conversation event Eccleston did in Manchester last week, and he was a funny (making a joke about having mouthed off too much recently), passionate guy who, whenever he did criticise things he worked on, always included himself as well (it was his bad call to listen to encouragement to do Hollywood stuff he wasn't interested in and the final--what he considers to be poor performances--are down to it just not clicking in his head).
Doctor Who wasn't mentioned very much in the talk itself (and Our Friends in the North not at all. The person chairing seemed to want to talk about the Leftovers, perhaps oddly for a show Chris admits ran for three years with no one watching because HBO had so much money from Game of Thrones they were happy to back it to maintain a relationship with its creator), meaning his reason for leaving didn't come up. Even if a couple of the audience questions were trying to tease at it.
But he spoke eloquently about how the character connected for him and how important it was to do something for kids and how great it is it's not a skinny white bloke any more (he even talked about that YouTube video of the little girl reacting to Jodi's announcement!).
He also talked about the genius of Tom Baker and how watching some of his stories in the middle of the shoot (having only caught regenerations before) helped him work out how to play it because Doctor Who is a show where you do have to do the same sort of things over and over and he felt Tom always found ways to keep it fresh and put variations on it and that made it click for him.
He actually asked the audience if he's right in thinking Tom was the only Doctor to get it immediately right and if everyone else was better in their second year. Which is where he wishes he'd had the chance to do a second year to get it right, especially the comedy he'd not played at that level before.
Which I guess means Big Finish or a future anniversary appearance aren't as impossible as folk think, at least if they don't want him to be just like he was on TV. But after trying the taking the money thing with Hollywood a few times (and he cheerfully admired his mortgage was something that prayed on his mind as much as anyones) and not enjoyed it I don't think at this stage he'd do any acting work that he didn't personally really want to do (convention appearances I can see being more common if LFCC goes well for him though).
It was also interesting that he said he only really started to have any confidence in himself as an actor after Lennon Naked, just ten years ago.
And despite the venue wanting to move folk on quickly (the staff laid down a "Selfie or an autograph, not both") he stayed behind to pose and sign (disproportionately Who stuff compared to how much it was mentioned) for what was well over half the 450 crowd.
The Who highlight though was him being given a glass carving of his Doctor that was designed to bat signal his face onto walls if you shone a light through it, and cheerfully playing with it during the Q&A part of the talk. Looking exactly like Nine sonicing something as he tried to get the torch app on his phone to make it work for the audience. This is not a man embarrassed by his association with the role.
https://twitter.com/InflatableDalek/status/993187613388558339?s=19
Doctor Who wasn't mentioned very much in the talk itself (and Our Friends in the North not at all. The person chairing seemed to want to talk about the Leftovers, perhaps oddly for a show Chris admits ran for three years with no one watching because HBO had so much money from Game of Thrones they were happy to back it to maintain a relationship with its creator), meaning his reason for leaving didn't come up. Even if a couple of the audience questions were trying to tease at it.
But he spoke eloquently about how the character connected for him and how important it was to do something for kids and how great it is it's not a skinny white bloke any more (he even talked about that YouTube video of the little girl reacting to Jodi's announcement!).
He also talked about the genius of Tom Baker and how watching some of his stories in the middle of the shoot (having only caught regenerations before) helped him work out how to play it because Doctor Who is a show where you do have to do the same sort of things over and over and he felt Tom always found ways to keep it fresh and put variations on it and that made it click for him.
He actually asked the audience if he's right in thinking Tom was the only Doctor to get it immediately right and if everyone else was better in their second year. Which is where he wishes he'd had the chance to do a second year to get it right, especially the comedy he'd not played at that level before.
Which I guess means Big Finish or a future anniversary appearance aren't as impossible as folk think, at least if they don't want him to be just like he was on TV. But after trying the taking the money thing with Hollywood a few times (and he cheerfully admired his mortgage was something that prayed on his mind as much as anyones) and not enjoyed it I don't think at this stage he'd do any acting work that he didn't personally really want to do (convention appearances I can see being more common if LFCC goes well for him though).
It was also interesting that he said he only really started to have any confidence in himself as an actor after Lennon Naked, just ten years ago.
And despite the venue wanting to move folk on quickly (the staff laid down a "Selfie or an autograph, not both") he stayed behind to pose and sign (disproportionately Who stuff compared to how much it was mentioned) for what was well over half the 450 crowd.
The Who highlight though was him being given a glass carving of his Doctor that was designed to bat signal his face onto walls if you shone a light through it, and cheerfully playing with it during the Q&A part of the talk. Looking exactly like Nine sonicing something as he tried to get the torch app on his phone to make it work for the audience. This is not a man embarrassed by his association with the role.
https://twitter.com/InflatableDalek/status/993187613388558339?s=19
Even Eccleston himself has hinted he might someday look into Big Finish. As for any future anniversary specials, maybe he can appear as the Curator in the 75th anniversary?
Thanks for the great event report, inflatabledalek. I'm particularly happy to read about what he said about Tom Baker and Jodie Whittaker. In fact, have we heard about his feelings about her before now?
Great write-up, thanks for sharing.
