Which goes to show never hire hollywood actors to play the main character on a TV show.

Tell that to Keifer Sutherland or Claire Danes.

What goes to show it? The fact that he had a huge hand in the show becoming popular again and in one series cemented himself as many people's favourite incarnation of the character?

He was hardly this at the time he did Who

He probably had the clause put in so that he wouldn't have to talk about the anniversary episode because he has no involvement or interest in it. Everyone's looking for an angle and unfortunately, he's there to promote his new film, not a TV show he's not starring in.

Give CE some respect. Without him and his stellar performance, we wouldn't have the series we have now. Yes, DT was a mega-fan of the show, but MS hadn't even seen an episode before taking on the role and become a fan through the work.

The great thing about CE is that he had no baggage, no agenda, no history with the show. He needed that to give his performance the freshness the show required and, unfortunately, with every passing series we seem to be going backwards stylistically to old Who rather than building on the foundation but down by those early series.

From my PR days, as I recall it's highly unlikely that the interview parameters are set by the actor anyway, but by the PR people setting up the interview. They want the press coverage on the current/most recent projects, not someone else's and certainly won't want to have put in the work for all the coverage to be free publicity for the BBC. I suspect the journalist reported the parameters by way of pre-empting the inevitable emails asking why there were no questions on DW.

For whatever reason, he chose not to appear in the highly anticipated 50th anniversary. I don't see how elaborating on his decision will help promote the 50th in any way at this point, so he may as well keep quiet until it airs.

I think it helps to have some "distance" from the role for
actors and producers- if everyone working on the program
were a fanatical DW fan, it would risk alienating the
general public. Chris just saw it as another role.

I think Chris wants to distance himself from SF fans in
general- in the interviews for "Thor", he denied being
a Marvel fan as a child, much to the dismay of the
movie's PR team.

Why are people turning against him and being so spiteful? He's an actor, he acts in stuff, he's not obligated to return to a previous role if he doesn't bloody well want to. He's obviously not comfortable with coming back or talking about the show, so just leave it at that. It's not far off 10 years since DW returned to our screens and he's clearly moved on, so it's high time we did the same.

I find that it's a theme among not just Who fans, but "cult" tv/movie fans in general. They take possession of an actor who stars in the show they love. In some respects, it can be a good thing, they'll follow the actor into other shows and films and can enjoy and become fans of those things too.

But, as in this case, it can be unhealthy, with fans feeling a sense of betrayal by an actor, demanding things the actor has absolutely no obligation to give.

Posts in this thread (and others like it) suggest that only fans of the show should take on the role - or that they should know they are taking on a part that they'll carry for life, even years and decades after they've finished in the programme. That's just stupid. Imagine an incredible actor, who would be perfect for the part of the Doctor, being invited to, and wanting to take on the role, but choosing not to because he was uncomfortable with the way fans would assume ownership of him afterwards.

Really, some people here seem to think that playing the Doctor is the highlight of a career. Maybe it would be for them, fans of the show. But for an actor, as enjoyable as the experience may be, it might just be one rewarding aspect of a diverse and exciting career.

Eccleston's turn as the Doctor no doubt helped make its rebirth successful.

Whatever his beef with the show's producers was, it still seems he was willing to talk to Moffat about making an appearance in the 50th. Whatever the reason, he decided against appearing.

Of course, he may make an appearance in a clip.

For the record, I thought his Doctor was Fantastic!

True. Just because most of the original series Doctors
remained involved with the show's fandom after leaving doesn't mean their successors have to do the same.

Actors have to move on to other things and don't like constantly being reminded of one role. If he's being interviewed presumably he wants to talk about his current role. I don't see why this is a problem for people.

Daniel Radcliffe will eternally be 'Harry Potter' to fans of the films but I should imagine that if interviewed now he would prefer to move away from this.

As opposed to the numerous other successful roles he's had both before and after Who?

Why would Who suddenly become more important to him than anything else he's done? He's in his fifties and not done too badly up to now. One of those years on Who doesn't make a difference.

He's showed in the past he doesn't mind talking about it. He's done general interviews about his career and spoke about things including Doctor Who.

Maybe this interview was promotion for Thor and therefore DW is of no relevance. He is being paid to promote Thor, pretty simple. Wouldn't surprise me if the PR people/studio set these ground rules. The actor is on their time, promoting their movie. They're not paying the actor to give attention to someone else's show.

Save all of their extra/sideline questions for general interviews.

Personally I'm just as sick of people asking him about Who as he (probably) is! Everyone should just let it go.

David Tennant managed it today on BBC Breakfast. He was there to promote the Escape Artist and was merrily chatting about Doctor Who.

He has a somewhat notable Doctor Who episode due to air fairly soon though.

Yes, because he's actually going to be in Doctor Who!

Well, he could have turned down the part because he didn't want to reprise the role, or was too busy, or shuddered with horror at the memory of his time on DW or something.

But I'm so glad he's too nice for that.

(And he won Best Actor for his part in Broadchurch in the Specsaver's Crime awards! Well done David!)

Sorry, didn't mean to but in, please continue talking about the other bloke.....

So Eccleston isn't nice?

I don't know if he's nice, I never met the guy. I think a lot of people find him aloof.

I don't have a problem with Eccleston not wanting to talk about Doctor Who, I even understand. However, I tend to be delighted when he does and I am disappointed he doesn't want to appear in Doctor Who anymore. That's life; I want this, he wants something else and ultimately, he's the one making that particular choice. Which is fair when you think about it, don't you think?

Yes, that's exactly what Granny believes:
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1814421

Apparently, even though she's not a fan of Chris's Doctor, she still thinks he's being "mean" to those who are fans.

How noble of her to have a dig at Chris for purely altruistic reasons.

I've only heard this second-hand, but apparently when
DW fans (as opposed to the media) meet Chris and
ask for an autograph, he's polite and friendly to them.

I haven't given up hope