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You've got to laugh
Independent, The (London), Nov 2, 2002 by Liz Hoggard
PEOPLE BEHAVE better around Christopher Eccleston. Which is ironic, really, when he has a reputation for being bloody difficult. But there's something about the actor's elaborate, olde-worlde courtesy that makes you want to be a nicer person. He arrives backstage for an evening shoot after a long day of rehearsals for his starring role in Hamlet at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds (we've been warned not to push our luck with the photographs), but within minutes he's holding doors open, remembering the names of crew, even apologising that his "celebrity" interview is intruding on another actor's warm-up time: "No please, it's us who are in your way." It's unshowy, northern good manners and it rubs off. By the end of the shoot, the photographer and I are being almost hysterically polite towards one another.
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So why the reputation? "I think I'm seen as a grumpy old sod, because I've played a lot of people who are troubled," Eccleston acknowledges. Certainly his recent film outings have cornered the market in dour masculinity - from the Duke of Norfolk in Elizabeth and General Robert Ford in Jimmy McGovern's Sunday, to Major Henry, in Danny Boyle's extraordinary new sci-fi thriller, 28 Days Later. These days he's rarely out of army uniform. But in the flesh, Eccleston, 38, is larky, boyish, spilling over with enthusiasm. Dressed in a low-key blue sweater and jeans, he could be the nice man who comes to fix your boiler. There's little sign of the sophisticated eroticism you see in his films, until he fixes you with an intense, penetrating stare. And, boy, does the camera like his face - from the demonically high cheekbones ("like a fallen gargoyle," he says) to the hooded eyes, which can switch from anger to sexual yearning in a millisecond.
Although he enjoys working with Danny Boyle (this is their third film outing after Shallow Grave), Eccleston admits he "fought like fuck" to keep his character in 28 Days Later from being a one- dimensional bully. "I wanted him to be a brutal pragmatist who loved his men on a spiritual level, the way men love each other in war." Based on an Alex Garland script, the film is set in post-apocalyptic Britain where a powerful "rage" virus has been unleashed accidentally by a group of animal rights activists, leaving only a handful of survivors. Eccleston plays the leader of a group of Manchester-based soldiers, who initially offers support, but later proves to be more sinister. He gives a typically compelling performance - violent, yet tender; macho, yet sexually ambiguous. "You want to create a problem for the audience so they enjoy themselves more."
In real life, Eccleston doesn't flirt. It's more interesting than that. He fixes you with his full attention, so you feel you must be very fascinating. As our photographer later observes, "He's incredibly receptive, and prepared to expose himself to everyone equally, but there's also a real sense of watchfulness. He is soaking up everything like a sponge."
But he is also holding himself in reserve. He knows not to give away anything too precious. Eccleston has always had a stormy relationship with the press, who respect his acting skills but are almost pathologically obsessed with his private life. (Current speculation has him linked to his Flesh and Blood co-star Emma Cunniffe). In the past he has cheerfully dismissed his love life as "a cavalcade of comedy", but ask for specific names, and he's liable to explode. These days, however, he's learning to deflect more. When we begin talking about screen sex - and, trust me, Eccleston's bedroom scenes with Nicole Kidman [The Others], Renee Zellwegger [A Price Above Rubies] and Kate Winslet [Jude] make it hard not to - he pauses, then says with a roguish grin. "I only take three minutes, and I can do it twice. I'm not good in bed, but I'm funny."
Considering that he tends to play character roles rather than the romantic lead, Eccleston has a huge fan base. Audiences sense he will never do anything false or flashy. They'll even tune in for more complex, issues- driven television dramas like Our Friends in The North, Hillsborough and Flesh and Blood just because he's in it. And if any actor can bring new energy to the bodice-ripper, it's Eccleston, though he can be tough when the work isn't up to scratch. "It's the way I was brought up." Although he loved McGovern's scripts for Cracker (which used a traditional police drama to tackle racism, homophobia and misogyny), he got himself written out of the series when his character, DCI Billborough, became a mere sidekick to Robbie Coltrane, cannily negotiating a famous death scene. He turned down roles in Peak Practice and Pie in the Sky and has regularly lambasted middle-class aspirational TV - "it's all vets, goats and doctors" - for disrespecting the audience.
You sense that success doesn't entirely suit Eccleston. Although Shallow Grave brought him cult status in 1994 f (playing David, the accountant- turned-mad-axe wielder), he later dismissed it as "superficial and thin, an example of style over content". He also turned down the role of Begbie in Boyle's follow-up, Trainspotting. When I suggest he was right not to get typecast as an Edinburgh psycho, he admits with some grace, "I wanted the other part [played by Ewan McGregor]. I thought I could be quite a convincing smackhead. But it worked out for the best. I couldn't imagine anyone but Bobby Carlyle playing the role of Begbie."
