Christopher Eccleston Reveals He Was ‘Very Ill’ With Anorexia & Depression...

[TMC]

While Filming ‘Doctor Who’

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/doc...on-1203338303/

“Doctor Who” actor Christopher Eccleston has opened up about his anorexia, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts.

Eccleston, who played the ninth incarnation of the Doctor, made the revelations in his forthcoming autobiography “I Love the Bones of You: My Father and the Making of Me.” “Many times I’ve wanted to reveal that I’m a lifelong anorexic and dysmorphic,” he wrote. “I never have. I always thought of it as a filthy secret, because I’m northern, because I’m male and because I’m working class.”

Eccleston said he suffered from the eating disorder while filming “Doctor Who.” He wrote, “The illness is still there raging within me as the Doctor. People love the way I look in that series, but I was very ill. The reward for that illness was the part. And therein lies the perpetuation of the whole sorry situation.”

After separating from his wife in 2015, Eccleston contemplated suicide and checked into a psychiatric hospital. “I was in a state of extreme anxiety, convinced I was either going to die or I was going to kill myself. In my despair I reached for my phone and looked up a psychiatric hospital, I rang ahead, grabbed my bag and ran,” he wrote.

He wrote that he continues to take anti-depressants. “I could be on them for the rest of my days. I do have an issue with that,” he wrote. “I would like to attempt slowly to reduce the dose to experience reality again.”

“I Love the Bones of You” is set to publish Sept. 19.

[RetroGuy2000]

So sorry to hear this. I always wondered why he only appeared in one season. Now we know.

[Steve_uk]

Originally Posted by TMC

While Filming ‘Doctor Who’

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/doc...on-1203338303/

Yes I read this story yesterday. It seems he has worried about his physique from the age of six. I'm not a Doctor Who fan but I do remember him in the film Let Him Have It. I think there must be a genetic component in some of these conditions, though I still don't think it's fully understood. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49713708

[TMC]

Christopher Eccleston recounts his Doctor Who exit, being allegedly blacklisted by the BBC and turning down the 50th-anniversary reunion

Eccleston recalled being frustrated with the Doctor Who team, which included showrunner Russell T. Davies, today at New York Comic-Con. "I felt I was going to play the Doctor my way and I wasn’t going to get involved with those politics and that wasn’t workable, so off I went. I became the invisible man," said Eccleston, who adds that he was blacklisted from UK acting jobs, which led him to work on shows in the United States. As for why he didn't return for the reunion special, Eccleston said: "I personally didn’t feel like the narrative was strong enough, particularly for the Ninth Doctor because I’d taken quite a lot of abuse in my own country when I left."