Quotes By Christopher Eccleston

I don't see a lot of films. I'm quite choosy, but there's certain films that stick out.

I went being unemployed for three years to being the lead in a British feature in the days when we only made two a year, 1990. It was ridiculous really.

We like to think that our parents made a decision to bring us into the world.

I love my accent, I thought it was useful in Gone In 60 Seconds because the standard villain is upper class or Cockney. My Northern accent would be an odd clash opposite Nic Cage.

I got a tiny part in a play, auditioned for another one and got that as well. Not only that, the first finished on the Saturday and the other started on the Monday which is like an actor's dream!

The money is better in films and television. But in terms of acting, theatre is more rewarding.

I had to help to coax the performances and I really enjoyed that extra responsibility.

The person who gives you your first job is so important in any industry.

I don't like to watch playback. But being on the set, watching the way the camera is being moved and the way the light is being used, you do get an idea of it.

I think the themes of belonging and parentage and love are obviously universal.

Rather than disliking theatre, I've expressed a preference for television because it tends to deal in its small way much more with issues and is able to reach a broader church of people than theatre.

I love Dead Ringers. A democratic set, the work was taken seriously.

My parents always knew I was hopeless at everything else, I was fortunate in that I was backed all the way. I came to it late and only because I thought there'd be loads of women and drinking!

I know exactly where I've come from, I know exactly who my mum and dad are.

Jacobean plays, before Shakespeare, were particularly visceral.

It can be very difficult to trace your birth parents.

Lots of middle class people are running around pretending to be Cockney.

I had bags of energy as a kid.

I think film and television are really a director's medium, whereas theatre is the actor's medium.

I used my instincts. It's very easy to imagine how you'd feel, actually. I just had to tell the narrative.

Many times I've sat with a camera and another actor and seen all their fears and insecurities and struggles. You want to support them and help them as much as you can.

I care more about telly because it made me an actor and there's a much more immediate response to TV. You can address the political or cultural fabric of your country.

I want to direct but I think I'd be bloody awful and I don't want to produce but I think I'd be a very good producer because if I believed in something I'd be able to protect it.

Often as a child you see someone with a learning disability or Down's Syndrome and my mum and dad were always very quick to explain exactly what was going on and to be in their own way inclusive and welcoming.

Television, although It's in steep decline, still occasionally gives voices to people who don't have voices.

Theatre is expensive to go to. I certainly felt when I was growing up that theatre wasn't for us. Theatre still has that stigma to it. A lot of people feel intimidated and underrepresented in theatre.

Any horror element is as much psychological as special effects.

I only ever worked on interiors, and an interior is an interior. I don't know what they did about exteriors.

What goes down on film is different to what you see with the naked eye.

I heard the various terms of abuse at school and probably indulged them in the way you do as a kid.