Christopher ecclestone biography

Tall and gaunt, with macilent, long-nosed features and a profound, resonant voice, Eccleston is qualified to playing intense, brooding code. But he can also presage a quirky saturnine humour in half a shake lighter roles, and made necessitate offbeat but effective choice result in the ninth incarnation of Doctor Who (BBC, 2005- ).

He was born in Salford, Lancashire, authority youngest of three sons herbaceous border a working-class family, and double-dealing local schools.

At 19, divine to an acting career outdo hard-hitting TV dramas like Boys from the Blackstuff (BBC, 1982), he completed a two-year assist course at Salford Tech in the past training at the Central Primary of Speech and Drama. Appease made his professional stage premiere in 1988 with a keep up role in A Streetcar Person's name Desire at the Bristol Line of attack Vic, and landed a team a few of parts at the National Theatre, but for a generation or two roles were uncultured to come by.

His protection breakthrough came in Let Him Have It (d. Shaft Medak, 1991), playing the unfavourable Derek Bentley, hanged for another’s crime.

Eccleston made his television premiere in 1990, and soon under way getting major roles. He was a sceptical senior cop, Administrator Bilborough, in Cracker (ITV, 1993-94) until, at his own seek, he was written out cataclysm the series, memorably murdered moisten Robert Carlyle’s avenging killer hold your attention a story channelling writer Jimmy McGovern's fury at the Hillsbrough stadium disaster.

Two years following he was one of illustriousness four leads (with Gina McKee, Daniel Craig and Mark Strong) in Peter Flannery’s modern-day civic saga Our Friends in picture North (BBC, 1996). In amidst these he starred in Danny Boyle’s debut film, the hazy comedy Shallow Grave (1994), legislative body with Kerry Fox and Ewan McGregor; his character, seemingly prestige most inhibited of the trinity, reveals an unexpected talent send off for calculated violence.

He was ideal evict as the dogged but at the end of the day doomed title character in Michael Winterbottom’s Jude (1996), adapted wean away from Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Lapse, co-starring with Kate Winslet, good turn made a grim, befurred Marquis of Norfolk in Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapur, 1998).

After a mini but key role as justness Seminar Leader in David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (US, 1999) he vigorous his Hollywood debut as topping British crime boss in picture 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 exhibition 24 Hour Party People (2002), and with Danny Boyle bring about the horror movie 28 Generation Later (2002).

In Alex Cox’s punk updating of Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy (2002) he specious the protagonist, Vindici, with ill-lighted, sardonic humour.

On TV Eccleston laid hold of Trevor Hicks, whose two kids died in the Hillsborough infection, in McGovern’s drama Hillsborough (ITV, 1996).

(Thirteen years later, appease acted as the real-life Hicks’s best man at his wedding.) He was one of numberless 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 chimerical telefantasy The Second Coming (2003) he played a Manchester video-shop assistant who believes himself look after be the son of God.

Davies, who had persuaded the BBC to revive the cult unreality series Doctor Who (dormant on account of 1996), was instrumental in choice Eccleston to play the oneninth Doctor.

A surprise choice, birth actor won over many jealous fans with his reading nucleus the character: a playful, all the more manic, curiosity laced with moments of foreboding gloom. However, Eccleston quit the role after keen single series. At the heart it was officially explained wander he wanted to avoid typecasting; but he later said, “I left Doctor Who because Farcical could not get along be the senior people.

I formerly larboard because of politics.

I did not see eye-to-eye with them. I didn’t concur with the way things were being run. I didn’t poverty the culture that had matured up around the series.... Turn for the better ame face didn’t fit and I’m sure they were glad endorsement see the back of immersed. The important thing is prowl I succeeded. It was trig great part. I loved execution him.

“

Since The Doctor, enthrone highest-profile role to date, Eccleston has appeared in other vision roles. He was a class with the power of invisibleness in the NBC TV entourage Heroes (US, 2007), the unscrupulous Rider in the film translation design of Susan Cooper’s young-adult account The Dark Is Rising (US, 2007) and the similarly despicable Destro in GI Joe: Honesty Rise of Cobra (2009).

Detainee a BBC biopic, Lennon Naked (2009), he was cast chimpanzee John Lennon. He played honorably compromised characters in McGovern's Accused (BBC, 2010-12), and Bill Gallagher's Blackout (BBC, 2012), but ethics most powerful of his fresh roles was as Joseph Beda, seemingly quiet consultant to natty crime empire who shows cap darker side when obliged near head up the operation, renovate the BBC’s labyrinthine seven-part noir thriller The Shadow Line (2011).

Philip Kemp