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Eccleston left because they wanted him to....
garbage456
Posts: 8,225 Forum Member
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drop his northern accent
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garbage456
Posts: 8,225 garbage456
Posts: 8,225 garbage456
Posts: 8,225 garbage456
Posts: 8,225
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Where did you get that idea?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3037641/Was-Doctor-northern-BBC-asks-Eccleston-Actor-suggests-fell-bosses-decision-play-character-accent.html
There's probably something to it, but the DM have likely exaggerated it massively.
Peter must be working with a voice coach right now to get over that Scottish nonsense we had to put up with;-)
Exactly - CE may well have said something about his accent being a little contentious, but I'd be willing to bet good money that he never actually said that the production team wanted to make him drop his accent.
The Daily Mail will have twisted, exaggerated and distorted his actual words to fit their hateful, hate-filled agenda. The Mail is perhaps the nastiest of the UK tabloids. And that's saying something.
"I hope I'll be remembered as one of the Doctors. I have no ill feeling towards the character or the series. I don't watch it and am not keen to discuss it because I want this to be about Safe House. That's my mortgage," he said.
Read more: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s7/doctor-who/news/a641613/christopher-eccleston-i-still-feel-insecure-as-a-working-class-actor.html#ixzz3XGtjUnLU
I'd have thought he had too much integrity to do that.
A BBC issued statement said this not CE.
The BBC later apologised for saying it.
http://www.bbc.com/news/10312426
Asked about his controversial departure from the programme, he told Radio Times: ‘I wanted to move him away from RP [received pronunciation] for the first time because we shouldn’t make a correlation between intellect and accent, although that still needs addressing.
The reverse is true surely these days? The behaviour of Prince Charles over his life (Homeopathy pushing, some clueless meddling in politics etc. although with hindsight he was bang on the money with organic farming), some of Prince Harry's youthful behaviour (awful school results and that Nazi fancy dress costumes, although he's a lot more "proper" these days) and characters such as Tim "nice but dim" have created the stereotype that people speaking with RP are a bunch of morons.
Ah, but for southerners, the North starts at the Watford gap and goes on to the Scottish border, but no further. North of the border is not the North; it's Scotland. Scotland may be north of the North, but it is not part of the North.
If it can be argued that lots of planets have a North, then surely it can also be argued that lots of planets have Highlands. And Valleys, come to that. Time for a Welsh Doctor?
Nicked from the Radio Times.
“I left Doctor Who because I could not get along with the senior people. I left because of politics. I did not see eye-to-eye with them. I didn’t agree with the way things were being run. I didn’t like the culture that had grown up, around the series. So I left, I felt, over a principle.
“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 shit. I’m not being funny about that. I didn’t want to do that and it comes to the art of it, in a way. I feel that if you run your career and– we are vulnerable as actors and we are constantly humiliating ourselves auditioning. But if you allow that to go on, on a grand scale you will lose whatever it is about you and it will be present in your work.
“If you allow your desire to be successful and visible and financially secure – if you allow that to make you throw shades on your parents, on your upbringing, then you’re knackered. You’ve got to keep something back, for yourself, because it’ll be present in your work. A purity or an idealism is essential or you’ll become– you’ve got to have standards, no matter how hard work that is. So it makes it a hard road, really.
“You know, it’s easy to find a job when you’ve got no morals, you’ve got nothing to be compromised, you can go, ‘Yeah, yeah. That doesn’t matter. That director can bully that prop man and I won’t say anything about it’. But then when that director comes to you and says ‘I think you should play it like this’ you’ve surely got to go ‘How can I respect you, when you behave like that?’
“So, that’s why I left. My face didn’t fit and I’m sure they were glad to see the back of me. The important thing is that I succeeded. It was a great part. I loved playing him. I loved connecting with that audience. Because I’ve always acted for adults and then suddenly you’re acting for children, who are far more tasteful; they will not be bullshitted. It’s either good, or it’s bad. They don’t schmooze at after-show parties, with cocktails.”
http://badwilf.co.uk/eccleston-explains-why-he-left-doctor-who
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2jn1WW_i9wg/hqdefault.jpg
No. Nice try at being snide though.
Actually, that's outdated... I used to come from the North - Lincoln. But no longer, it is North of Watford Gap, but it is South of Yorkshire, which is where The North starts... And Greater Manchster and Merseyside.
Above the Watford Gap and below The North is now all The Midlands!
Sorry to go off-topic...
Back on topic - so what was the emphasis in the script then*? Did CE strong-arm them into including it? Could that have been the start of some bad blood perhaps?
*
CE was indecisive as to whether he would return for the Christmas special and season 2. The "will he be back, won't he be back" dilly-dallying went on for months and started to put production at risk.
So eventually BBC Wales made the decision for him, thanked him for his time and effort and cast David Tennant as his replacement.
The original end to "The Parting of the Ways" had the 9th Doctor throw himself from the TARDIS into the time vortex after absorbing all the temporal energy from Rose. It was quickly re-shot with the regeneration.
So, perhaps, a different reason why CE holds something of a grudge against the show.
It is true that the acting profession is stuffed with privately educated southerners and that breaking into the acting profession is more difficult for some (especially those without parents and good connections already in the business). On the plus side having a real northern accent can only be a bonus for some parts so it's swings and roundabouts.
My guess is that it was more to do with a clash or personalities than his accent that he departed the show. David Tennant was always keen, obviously willing to do any accent they wanted and take part in any promotion of the show. It was probably more to do with his attitude than anything else.
How is it an improbable theory when a poster above has posted a transcript of what Chris Eccleston said in an interview?
I think it's right to have a chip on your shoulder when you see things that need changing.