Like many, I was a bit stunned when Christopher Eccleston left Doctor Who after only one season, and recently, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, Eccleston finally told us why he left.
“I left Doctor Who because I could not get along with the senior people. I left because of politics. I did not see eye-to-eye with them. I didn’t agree with the way things were being run. I didn’t like the culture that had grown up, around the series. So I left, I felt, over a principle.
“I thought to remain, which would have made me a lot of money and given me huge visibility, the price I would have had to pay was to eat a lot of shit. I’m not being funny about that. I didn’t want to do that and it comes to the art of it, in a way. I feel that if you run your career and– we are vulnerable as actors and we are constantly humiliating ourselves auditioning. But if you allow that to go on, on a grand scale you will lose whatever it is about you and it will be present in your work.”
You can read more of his comments over at Bad Wilf.
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I read this yesterday and was actually kind of relieved that he came out and said it.
Eccleston was quite possibly my favourite Who and his leaving of the show after a single season was always premature, especially as they were only *just* reigniting the series.