TF HERO
The Salford star talks hitmen, Hemsworth and hard shoots…
A career chat with Christopher Eccleston, the Doctor Who who made Doctor Who cool again.
Christopher Eccleston is well aware of his reputation. “The overarching view of me is as a miserable bastard,” he jokes, early in our conversation about his role as hard man Harvey in Tom Edmunds’ debut Dead In A Week (Or Your Money Back). But he’s also charming, funny and bracingly honest as he looks back on his career so far…
How did you get involved with
Dead In A Week?
It was a straight offer. I thought the script was beautifully written and, for me, a massive attraction was working with Tom Wilkinson and Marion Bailey. Those are two actors I’ve watched for the last 30 years, at least, and hugely admire. It was very exciting. To get a comedic role was lovely, too. You can get put in a box, but a good director will see past that. Harvey really is a gift of a role.
What appealed to you about Harvey?
Whenever I’ve played these sorts of people before, I’ve failed miserably. In Gone in 60 Seconds I was shite –
though I was told recently by a fan that, “You’re so bad in it, it’s good!” I take my responsibility, but in G.I. Joe and Gone In 60 Seconds the writing was poor. Whereas what Tom did here with Harvey was to give him a backstory and vulnerability and a complexity. Harvey’s got a passion for Michael J. Fox films and some loyalty, so he’s layered. I’m proud of the performance and I’m proud of the film. It’s tragic-comic, which is pretty much my view of life. Especially when José Mourinho’s managing your team…
This is Tom Edmunds’ first film. How was the shoot?
Really good. It’s no small thing, directing, especially taking on a lion like Tom Wilkinson. He took it all in his stride. He’s sickeningly good looking, too. There’s gotta be skeletons in that boy’s closet.
Shallow Grave was another debut feature. What do you recall of your first collaboration with Danny Boyle?
It was an intense shoot. Myself, Ewan and Kerry were never going to be friends – we just had very different approaches to acting. But I think that was good for the film. We made it largely on an industrial estate in Glasgow that was freezing. I remember we wrapped on Bonfire Night and Danny Boyle looked like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. His hair was stood up on end, his eyes were popping out, fireworks were going off, and he turned around to me and said, “I think I’m going mad!”
We hear you weren’t happy with your performance in
Thor: The Dark World. They said to me in the negotiations, “There’ll be a little bit of make-up.” What they didn’t say was that it’d be seven hours of it, which was very dishonest of them. That was a miserable experience and a dreadful performance, but I loved working with Alan [Taylor] – he’s a great director. And Hemsworth was fantastic. A generous actor who really had his feet on the ground. It’s interesting what’s happened with Thor. The third one is great film, because they were prepared to mix a knockabout sense of humour with the more serious side of things. If we could have had some of that with the elves…
Do you feel any of your projects fell through the cracks?
The Leftovers, that was just beautifully written. A very powerful film executive once said to me that if Jude had come out after Titanic, it would have had far more attention. I’m proud of that film and I think it’ll stand the test of time. Flesh And Blood, a TV film I did with Julian Farino, is very dear to me. And The A Word. We managed to get a show about autism on BBC One at 9 O’Clock and I’m very proud of that.
‘chris hemsworth was fantastic – he really had his feet on the ground’