UK newspaper, The Telegraph have just posted a recent interview with Doctor Who Actor, Christopher Eccleston, regarding his new play Antigone, and why the theatre means so much to him.

Below are a few excepts from the interview, which can be read in full here:

“I’ve neglected theatre,” he says, quiet certainty matched by emphatic vigour, his Salford accent pressing flinty personality into the words. “That’s a shame. It’s why I went to train as an actor. And for the next 20 or 30 years I’m going to do more and more of it. That’s the plan. I’m determined!”

Some of his facility for comedy was evident in the grinning eccentricity he brought to Doctor Who. But that only lasted a series. And puzzlement continues as to why he left before he had a chance to own the role.

When prodded to speak further about this, he is amicably terse. “I know what went on and the people who were involved know what went on – that’s good enough for me.”

He half-smiles, half-grimaces. “My conscience is completely clear. I’ve lived my life, particularly my working life, on the basis that I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror about the way I behave. It wasn’t a bold move, it was an entirely natural one. I’m hugely grateful to the children who to this day come up and talk to me about the show.”

+  Antigone previews at the National’s Olivier Theatre (020 7452 3000) from 23rd May.

[Source: The Telegraph]

Matt Smith has no plans to leave Doctor Who as he reveals he is going back to film the 2012 series.

It has previously been reported that the quirky actor was planning to leave the hit sci-fi show after the upcoming series airs on BBC this spring, however in an interview with The Daily Telegraph the star has insisted that he doesn’t want to ‘give it up anytime soon.’

“I’m going back this year,” he said. “I guess [I'll] get another one out the way, see what everyone thinks of that. I love doing it, I don’t want to give it up anytime soon, put it that way.”

Smith also confessed that he was terrified about his debut on the show last year, because he wasn’t sure fans would accept him as David Tennant’s successor.

“Before that came out, I didn’t know if people were going to hurl tomatoes at me,” he said. “I had no idea. But then I suppose every actor goes through that period of, ‘Like me! Like me!’ That’s part of being an artist, I think.”

[Sources: Unreality TV; The Daily Telegraph]