Christopher Eccleston has never been a man known for biting his tongue. The British actor has always been remarkably candid and honest, in interviews. So, you have to imagine when he’s asked about particularly dark times in his career, Eccleston is going to tell you exactly what is on his mind. And he definitely did that in an interview with The Guardian.
In the interview, Eccleston was asked about his high-profile, big budget film projects, specifically working with Marvel Studios on “Thor: The Dark World” and with Paramount on “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.”
“Working on something like [G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra’] was horrendous,” he says. “I just wanted to cut my throat every day. And [‘Thor: The Dark World’]? Just a gun in your mouth. ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ was a good experience. Nic Cage is a gentleman and fantastic actor. But ‘GI Joe’ and ‘Thor’ were … I really paid for being a whore those times.”
Wow, okay.
Unfortunately for Eccleston, those two films are widely-regarded as bad films, with ‘The Dark World’ being at the bottom of most people’s Marvel Studios rankings. However, with either film, the blame cannot be placed on the actor. Eccleston, in both instances, gave it his all, but the material failed him.
Marvel Studios and ‘G.I. Joe’ weren’t the only franchises in Eccleston’s cross-hairs.
“What happened around ‘Doctor Who’ almost destroyed my career,” he says. “I gave them a hit show and I left with dignity and then they put me on a blacklist. I was carrying my own insecurities as it was something I had never done before and then I was abandoned, vilified in the tabloid press and blacklisted. I was told by my agent at the time: ‘The BBC regime is against you. You’re going to have to get out of the country and wait for regime change.’”
While this is clearly one side to the story, this does illuminate why Eccleston has stayed away from ‘Who’ since his departure. When all the previous Doctors were teaming up and reuniting, Eccleston was noticeably absent, and if you believe his side of the story, you can’t blame him. He is definitely, at least partly, responsible for bringing back ‘Doctor Who’ to modern audiences. The franchise has gone on to be a massive, global hit, and Eccleston’s Doctor is the beginning of that.
It’s amazing that Marvel Studios, ‘G.I. Joe,’ “Doctor Who,” and Nicolas Cage are brought up, and the only one left unscathed is Cage. Guess we’ll never fully understand the pure charisma and charm that is Nic Cage.