evilqueenofgallifrey replied to your post “i gotta admit it’s been pretty ironic to hear about eccleston’s...”
what exactly happened between him and RTD? i'm v curious
shurithewakandanmemequeen
replied to your post
“i gotta admit it’s been pretty ironic to hear about eccleston’s...”
@evilqueenofgallifrey it's not quite 100% clear on what happened. Chris said that was was uncomfortable with such a 'light-hearted' role (okay?). The only thing I can guess with this is that Chris wanted to push it in a more darker direction but RTD did not want that.
That’s nowhere near the only thing he says, and personally I wouldn’t have read it that way, rather that his unsurety about playing the role may have contributed to the fractious atmosphere on set:
After recently claiming he was “blacklisted” by the BBC after leaving Doctor Who, former Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston has now revealed more about the tensions he felt on set during filming for the sci-fi series.
“My relationship with my three immediate superiors – the showrunner, the producer and co-producer – broke down irreparably during the first block of filming and it never recovered,” Eccleston says in the latest issue of Radio Times.
“They lost trust in me, and I lost faith and trust and belief in them,” he continues.
Describing the situation as “very” stressful, Eccleston claims that he felt out of place playing a lighter role, and believes it may have contributed to on-set difficulties.
“Some of my anger about the situation came from my own insecurity,” he says. “They employed somebody [as the Doctor] who was not a natural light comedian.”
He adds, “Billie [Piper], who we know was and is brilliant, was very, very nervous and very, very inexperienced. So, you had that, and then you had me. Very, very experienced, possibly the most experienced on it, but out of my comfort zone.”
In the interview, Eccleston goes on to reveal why he’s only elected to speak on the subject in recent months, with the Salford-born actor suggesting he’d made an agreement not to “damage” the reputation of the series.
“When I left, I gave my word to [then-showrunner] Russell T Davies that I wouldn’t do anything to damage the show,” he says. “But they did things to damage me. I didn’t criticise anybody.”
Asked if Davies was aware of the issues, Eccleston says, “If you’re the showrunner, you know everything. That’s your job,” adding that he “never will have” a working relationship with the screenwriter again.
Eccleston has previously on multiple occasions mentioned problems with the first production block and particularly with the director (which he hasn’t named, but was Keith Boak), and when you join these comments to ones made in 2011 the implication is that among other things RTD, Julie Gardner and either Mal Young or Phil Collinson did not do enough to curb a culture of bullying:
“I left Doctor Who because I could not get along with the senior people. I didn’t agree with the way things were being run.”
He added: “I thought to remain, which would have made me a lot of money and given me huge visibility, the price I would have had to pay was to eat a lot of sh*t.”
“It’s easy to find a job when you’ve got no morals. You can go, ‘Yeah, yeah. That doesn’t matter. That director can bully that prop man and I won’t say anything about it’.”
