Actors - Christopher Eccleston

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	Actors - Christopher Eccleston

Christopher Eccleston (born on 16 February 1964 in Salford, Lancashire) is an English stage, television and film actor, best known for his roles in several high profile "prestige" films and television series and for playing the ninth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who.

Biography

As a child his ambition was to play football for his beloved Manchester United, but he found himself to be a much better actor than he was a footballer, and inspired by television dramas such as Boys from the Blackstuff, he took to acting as his profession.

Eccleston gained a BA in Performing Arts at the University of Salford and gained a First. He subsequently trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and first came to public attention as Derek Bentley in the 1991 film Let Him Have It
, based on true events. However, it was a regular role in the TV series Cracker (1993–94) — culminating in his character's dramatic death in the second series — that made him a recognisable figure in the UK.

He appeared in the low-budget Danny Boyle film Shallow Grave
in 1994, in which he co-starred with the up-and-coming Ewan McGregor. The same year, he won the part of Nicky Hutchinson in the epic BBC drama serial Our Friends in the North, and it was the transmission of this production on BBC Two in 1996 that perhaps really made him into a household name in the UK.

His film career has since taken off with a variety of high-profile but not — except in one or two cases — major roles, including parts in Jude
(1996), Elizabeth (1998), eXistenZ (1999), Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000), The Others
(2001), 24 Hour Party People
(2002) and another Danny Boyle film, the horror movie 28 Days Later
(2002). He did play a major role as the protagonist of Alex Cox's 2002 Revengers Tragedy
, adapted from Thomas Middleton's play of the same name. He has starred alongside two major Hollywood actresses in smaller independent movies, playing opposite Renée Zellweger in A Price Above Rubies (1998) and Cameron Diaz in The Invisible Circus
(2001). Despite starring in the car-heist movie Gone in 60 Seconds, he did not actually take his driving test until January 2004 and is only licenced to drive automatic transmission cars.

Despite his successful film career, he has continued to appear in a variety of meaty television roles, racking up credits in some of the most challenging and thought-provoking British television dramas of recent years. These have included Hearts and Minds (1995) for Channel 4, Clocking Off (2000) and Flesh and Blood (2002) for the BBC and Hillsborough (1996), a modern version of Othello (2002), playing 'Ben Jago', (the Iago character) and the religious telefantasy epic The Second Coming (2003, for ITV, playing Steve Baxter, the son of God, a role which some found ironic as Eccleston is an atheist). He also finds time for the occasional light-hearted role, however, as his guest appearances in episodes of the comedy drama Linda Green (2001) and macabre sketch show The League of Gentlemen (2002) have shown.

On stage, his highest-profile production has been his starring role in Hamlet at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds in 2002. The West Yorkshire Playhouse is a favourite venue of his, and he most recently returned there in the new play Electricity, which ran in March and April 2004.

A very highly-regarded actor, Eccleston has twice been nominated in the Best Actor category at the British Academy Television Awards, the UK's premier television awards ceremony. His first nomination came in 1997 for Our Friends in the North, when he lost out to Nigel Hawthorne (for The Fragile Heart), and he was nominated again in 2004 for The Second Coming, this time being beaten by Bill Nighy (for State of Play). He did, however, triumph in the Best Actor categories at the 1997 Broadcasting Press Guild Awards and the Royal Television Society Awards, winning for Our Friends in the North. He won the RTS Best Actor award for a second time in 2003, this time for his performance in Flesh and Blood. In 2005 he received the Most Popular Actor award in the National Television Awards for Doctor Who.

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