by Christopher Eccleston has revealed that he turned down his role in Billy Elliot because the portrayal of a working-class family was “offensive”.
The Manchester-born, Salford-raised actor has criticized the film, which tells the story of a ballet he aspires to, as he discusses his decision to turn down acting opportunities, which he believes are patronizing to the masses work.
In the case of Eccleston, it was the portrayal of the main character’s parents that left a sour taste in his mouth. Said the actor, whose father was a forklift truck driver and his mother a cleaner The Independent in a new interview: “I’m tired of seeing working-class parents portrayed as adamantly against their kids going into the arts.”
The 59-year-old actor, who has long been concerned about the lack of arts funding in the north, said he was approached to play the role of Billy’s father back in 1999.
“What was that f***ing ballet movie that everyone went crazy about? I was offered a meeting to play the father. But I said, ‘I’m not going to do that, it’s offensive,’” said the actor.
The film coming of age, directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Lee Hall, was released in 2000. Jamie Bell played the working-class dancer from Country Durham. Meanwhile, Gary Lewis played the character’s father – a stricken coal miner who tries to push his son towards boxing instead of ballet.
ex Doctor Who actor Eccleston lambasted the film as “a middle-class view of the working-class experience, made for the American market,” adding: “F*** it!”
Lewis previously said he met with the miners in preparation for the role. Speaking about his time in the film, Lewis said: “My family and I were very active in supporting the miners: I stood in picket lines, raised money for the miners and was involved in the whole campaign to stop contribute to closing the pits.
“Essentially, it was the state that launched an all-out attack on part of the working class, part of the working class. Many people responded with solidarity and that was a key element in the script: solidarity working on different levels, collective solidarity, economic solidarity.”
Eccleston has long spoken out against the lack of funding going towards drama schools and arts centres, expressing concern that this will affect the rise in the number of actors coming from the north.
In April 2023, Eccleson was praised for his impassioned words after Oldham’s historic Coliseum theater was closed following a failed campaign to save the venue.
The Coliseum, which the actor called a “warning” for Greater Manchester actors, was the biggest theater outside London to lose its £600,000-a-year Arts Council England subsidy following a funding change in of November 2022.
“I went to see productions there as a child, and I think it’s tragic that Oldham and its borough are losing a theater at a time when we’re supposed to be leveling up,” he said on today’s program on BBC Radio 4.
“What it was about last night was to start a campaign to establish a new theater in Oldham, and also to say that this could not happen anywhere else. Because the question in my mind is, can they get rid of Oldham Coliseum, which has been there for over 100 years, where’s next for the North West?”
Eccleston, whose credit is included Cracker, 28 days later… and The Prophets, continued: “If you grow up in the North West, you don’t feel like you own the culture and the arts. You don’t believe, if you come from a council estate, [that] you can be an actor, a poet or a painter.
“So places like Oldham Coliseum, Bolton Octagon – they’re beacons for people like me.”
He said he “wouldn’t be an actor if there weren’t” such venues, saying: “And they’re going away. So what happens to this generation’s Chris Ecclestons or Maxine Peakes, or whoever you want to name?
“There are no more actors like me coming through – it’s impossible. Now, you just have to go to public school, don’t you? You have to go to Oxbridge, or you can’t act.”
He said he would advise aspiring actors from the North West to “don’t just think about being an actor”, but “produce, direct, use iPhones, use everything that’s available to you”.
The actor also warned: “You’re going to have to put up with unemployment – you’re going to have to put up with rejection – and that’s doubly so if you’re from a working-class background. ‘is a minority, etc etc.’
Eccleston said he will be “following through” on ACE’s promise to build a new theater in Oldham in 2026, and that the money that would have gone to the Coliseum will be given to the council “to fund other arts projects in the area “.
The actor recently finished playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the Old Vic production of it A Christmas carol. True Detective: Night Country airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic and NOW
