He is the Doctor. But not for long, it turns out... Christopher Eccleston talks to Ian Berriman. D'ya wanna come with me? Cause if you do, I should warn you: it's gonna be a bumpy ride. There'll be joy and excitement. But there'll be confusion and disappointment, too. See this page is actually a time machine. Don't believe me? I'll prove it. A quick spin of the temporal dials... now step outside. It's just past midnight on 20 March 2004 - a happy day. See that bloke? That's me! Five minutes ago, I got a very important text message. That's why I'm jabbering away on the 'phone. "Can you belive it? Christoper fookin' Eccleston! This is gonna be brilliant!" There I go, running around my flat, punching the air. What do you mean, "squealing like a girl"? Another quick spin of the dials. Hang on two ticks - a good hard thump willsort it. There. Step outside. It's Wednesday 23 March 2005: three days before the new series of Doctor Who premiers on BBC1. We're in a rabbit's warren of offices on the King's Road. There's a familiar face, simply dressed in black boots, jeans and the t-shirt of a local cancer charity. He's hung-over (he was out on the razz last night). He's got scabby elbows. "Look at that clock!" says Eccleston, nodding his head at the said timepiece, "I love that clock!" "See," I say "You've aquired an interest in time now." Eccleston scans the office, slurping on a cuppa and gulping down a couple of Nurophen. "Bit fancy, innit?" he confides. "Yeah. I got lost, and went into the wrong office." "Me too. I went in two offices," says Eccles, flashing that Doctorish grin. I'm here to do a professional job of work, but it's not easy for an ageing fanboy. My inner eight year-old wants to squeak "take me away in the TARDIS!" Eccleston soon puts me at ease. He's down-to-earth. He's self-deprecating. He's a bloke with acapital "B". When I roll out some personal questions to "get an idea of who he is", he spreads his arms, palms up, and declares "I'm just me, sat here!" When asked which actors he admires, he namechecks people from stage school. He keeps bigging-up the production team - not just writers and directors, but the cameraman and the prop guy. A week later, the tabloids will be slagging him off for exercising his right to do whatever he wants with his career. Pathetic. But right now it's 23 April, and Chris is at the centre of a media whirlwind. Those big lugs are spashed all over billboards. He's under no obligation to do publicity work, but he wants to. "I've never been more certain of how hard a crew has worked on a project. People put their lives on hold to do it. So I'm doing it for the crew who made it in Cardiff. They were my family for nine months. We lived in each other's pockets, and there are some brilliant craftsmen and women shaping this series. I'm just the tip of the iceberg". The other reason he's pubicising the show is more ideological. "I'm really comfortable selling this because at the heart of the series is a great innocence [Eccleston thumps the table for emphasis] and decency [thump], and purity [thump]. I believe wholeheartedly in some of the lessons that you learn from the Doctor, about acceptance and greeting strange things with a sense of wonder, rather than fear and aggression. There is, at the heart of it, a celebration of difference. In the end, the Doctor has to deal with the Slitheen and the Gelth, but initially he gives them the benefit of the doubt. I like that. In cynical rimes, it's a good, positive thing to make television about." What was the key to understanding the character? Was there a particular line that suddenly made him think, "That's how I should play him"? "There were thousands of texts and emails between myself and Russell [T Davies, the show's main writer and executive producer] during the making of it. In an early one, Russell said, 'How are you getting on playing this? Because I'm finding it very difficult to write'. Then he said, , ...because he's just in the moment, isn't he?' and I thought 'That's what I'm gonna be: eternally in the moment.' And there is a basis to that gleefulness which is shadowy and interesting. This almost desperate desire to be in the moment is to do with his past. He's a survivor of the destruction of his own people, and he feels the guilt of the survivor." Eccleston flashes a grin as he realises the absurdity of earnestly discussing the Doctor's "motivation". "This is all gonna end up in Private Eye... He's forever running from his past, which was what makes him dramatically interesting to play. I was forever thinking that there was a backstory. But in the end, I'm just a bloke in a leather jacket. Yes, the Doctor's character is interesting, but what you are when you play the Doctor is a host for a 45-minute adventure. It's a ride, and he's the host. It's not really a character study, like in Our Friends In The North." Not for the last time today, Eccles starts lavishing praise on Russell T Davies. A lot has been written about the more emotional relationship between the Doctor and his companion, Rose. But the real love affair here seems to have been the one between the leading man and his writer. "My job is made possible by the brilliance of Russell's writing. There's no doubt, the creator of the Doctor is not sat here with you now. He's the man. It's an amazing creation, this latest Doctor, and that is down to Russell." Previous Doctors tended to be pretty fixed. Eccleston's Doctor is different. "As you will find, this Doctor goes on a very particular journey. There is a start and a finish for this Doctor. Yeah, he has an arc." And that was always in his head? "l'd love to say it was in my head but it's Russell. It's his creation. I'm convinced that he watched me in rushes, saw all these directions I was going in and started to incorporate that. I think we were always talking to each other through rushes. There was a kind of second guessing going on." And a large part of the Ninth Doctor is Russell T Davies himself. "Alot of it is implicit in the way he writes. Russell's own verbal rhythms are in a lot of the stuff he writes. I could hear Russell say those lines, in my head, and I'd use that." Apparently the Time Lord and the writer share many qualities. "Speed of thought. Verbal dexterity. The ability to laugh in any situation. Russell will find a reason to laugh at the most upsetting events, and I think that's useful for a Doctor. He'd make a good Doctor! He's got a leather jacket!" There's more than a bit of Christopher Eccleston in the mix, though. "Quite a lot. It's the closest I've been to being myself, to just being me. Or a 41 year-old version of the child I was, in terms of curiosity and energy and openness and love of life. Which is what it's about - a lust for life." He's also made Northern blokes like me deliriously happy by keeping his Salford accent. That was a political decision. "What we've done there is: now you can go anywhere with the Doctor. It's got to be pointed out that the Doctors have always been white. Why? Are we saying that there are no aliens out there with different coloured skin? There were things about the series that needed to change to bring it in line with the 21st Century. The feminising of it has been one of those things. And my accent. Because we can be brave and intelligent, can't we! The most important things about the Doctor are his intelligence, his bravery and his heart, not his accent. You don't have to sound like a white middle class man to have those qualities." We discuss actor Barry Rutter, whose theatre company has staged Shakespearian plays on factory floors, performed in Northern accents. "The accent that Shakespeare spoke when he originally wrote these plays was not RP. It's just become that way because that culture was snatched and turned into an elite area. I personally am against that. As a child growing up I felt excluded from theatre and the arts. I felt, 'Oh well, people in the arts don't sound like me."' And it's the same now. "You see it in American sci-fi films. For some reason, white middle class English is what aliens sound like. Bollocks! Bollocks, say I! How do they know? Why they do they always have to sound like classically trained Lavenders." "When I was a little boy I watched Doctor Who and thought, 'Well if I'm gonna be brave and I'm gonna be a scientist, I'll have to sound posh.' Now it means we Can have what's patronisingly called a 'regional accent'. We can have a Londoner. Kids today will go, 'I'm from Tottenham. .. I could be Doctor Who!' Without getting soapboxy, I think that's great! And that's in line with the purity at the core of the series. Give the woman a proper part, and get rid of the public school lecturer! " Eccleston politely requests, "Can I just go to the loo?" Er, sure. While he pops off for a pee, let's spin the dials of our time machine again. It's 31 March 2005. The news that Eccleston has declined to sign up for a second series has turned him into Patrick McGoohan's character from The Prisoner. Everyone is asking, "Why did you resign?" On a messageboard, a self-important Doctor Who fan has posted a rant: "My opinion of him as a person has sunk lower than a cockroach...he had no moral right whatsoever to take on this role if he was going to quit after 13 episodes. What a betrayal of the trust that was placed in him! DAMN HIM!!!" Christ. Get a sense of perspective. Get a life. Inter-temporal sensors are detecting a, er, flushing sound. We'd better dash back to the 23 March for more questions. Will they shed any light on his decision? First up, I ask if Eccleston's understanding of the character developed over all those months of filming. His response is interesting. "Yeah. We got off to a bad start. Those first few weeks on any project are the most important, because the first time you put the stamp on the character, it's really important to have confidence. And my confidence was rocked by that first block of filming"; Later, we discuss how Tom Baker eventually came to believe that he knew better than the directors. "One of the attractions of playing the role is that you have to work with a succession of different directors. And you have to accept that they're going to have a contribution to make, and you have to collaborate with them. And as long as they're honest and polite with me, and considerate of the burden and the responsibility I've got, I'm easy. If I have a problem, it's when people want to play fast and loose with the script. My drama school training and influences have always been to put the script at the centre of the work. That's always on the table between me and the director. ..I would never ever change a line of Russell's dialogue. Perhaps a word, but I'd always ring him. If you agree to do a script - do the script." Maybe another question is also pertinent. How physically exhausting was it playing the role? "It is grinding. It's a proper job. I'm probably in about 90% of the scenes. You're on your feet all day, and when you're not on your feet playing the role, you're learning the lines. My evenings were always about learning the lines for the next day." Was it tougher than the labouring jobs he did in his twenties? He thinks surprisingly long and hard. "No. Nowhere fucking near it! But it is actually graft. With TV you do a 14-hour day and then you're doing your line learning. I think that's what would piss off most labourers and people who work in factories: get up at 6.30am, leave at 7.30 at night, then start learning lines, six days a week. I ain't moaning about it but...yeah, if you play the Doctor, the hardest thing is: you can't have a life. You cannot have a life. You can't socialise. It's like having a TARDIS in your skull and every time you open your mouth you see a TARDIS. There were days when I got psoriasis, I got eczema. My face blew up in the Dalek episode - I looked literally disfigured with tiredness and my skin." So it was knackering. Maybe that explains his decision to leave? But Eccleston is equally talkative about the pleasures of the job. "The responsibility of being in every scene was something I relished. At my age, I was ready for that. AT this point in my career I was getting tired of just turning up, doing my lines, and retiring to my trailer. What I love about it is that I had to work in tandem with Martin, our brilliant camera operator, and with Phil, our props man, and it's not just about your performance. It's about us making a programme together. And I loved being part of that amazing team. By and large - apart from the first block of filming - it was a joy. There was a lot of politics - there always is on a job like this - and I didn't particularly enjoy that, but... I was on the balls of my feet. And mentally on them. And I loved that." Pause. Let's freeze time. We'll leave Eccles frozen, midway through one of his little habits. He rolls up both the sleeves of his t-shirt above his shoulders; then, 30 seconds later, he rolls them down again. A quick spin of the temporal dials, and it's Monday 4 April 2005. The internet is buzzing with conjecture. People want information. Why did number 9 resign? Maybe Eccleston fell out with Russell T Davies? Reset the dials. Press play. Eccleston comes back to life. Rolls down the sleeves of his t-shirt. Talks about his love and respect for Russell. "What always kept me going was Russell's scripts. It's quite an emotional relationship, between me and Russell, really. When a writer's that good, and has worked that hard, you really want to please them. It's a very emotional relationship. And shot throughout this series is the fact that Russell has wanted to write this series all his life - this is a little boy's dream come true. And that's quite an emotional thing. Fulfilling his dream is very important to me. So it was always a fidelity to Russell's vision that kept me going." Pause. Hit redial on the chronometer. It's 20 March 2004 again. There I am, running round my flat, squealing like a girl down the phone. At the other end of the line, another SFX hack is running up and down, screaming "fantastic!" If you stepped into that room now, as a messenger from the future, and told me that Eccleston was going to move on after a year, how would I react? Would I be incensed at the "betrayal"? Or would I weigh up the information for a moment, then carry on squealing like a girl? We were gifted with one of the best actors in Britain playing the Doctor for a year. We're lucky, lucky sods. Let's enjoy it while it lasts. SFX... Chris is a supporter of the Christie Hospital, a cancer treatment centre in Manchaster. You can donate online at www.christies.org. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ More from the interview: DANCING TO THE MUSIC OF TIME SFX: "What would your specialist subject be if you appeared on Mastermind?" Eccleston: "Seventies soul. AI Green, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye; the careers of. Doctor Who fans are obsessive, and understand that, because I've got that kind of slightly obsessive gene with music. It's one of the ways I did relax when we were shooting, listened to a lot of reggae for the Doctor. I was convinced that he skanks in the TARDIS when Rose is out! Toots And The Maytals on, with all the lights pulsing; because he doesn't like standIng still!" THE CLUMSY DOCTOR SFX: We talked to the programme's production designer, Ed Thomas, and he told us you're always breaking props. Eclesion: "Yeah! We had Some ups and doWns with the design of the sonic. They handed it to mefor the firsitime- it was about a month in, I think - and I broke it! I said, jokingly, "Every prop yoU give me,I will break." And everything they gave me,I did! My grandmother once said about my father, 'Our Ronnie's So clumsy, he'd trip over a tealeaf!' And I've inherited that, as well as these" [Eccleston points at his ears] SFX: Presumably that says something about the physicality of your approach... Ecdesion: "It's just that I'm clumsy! A 'stupid ape', as the Doctor would say. Thanks for trying to dress it up, but I'm just clumsy!"