Christopher Eccleston is an actor who always savours a challenge. His healthy career highlights the variety of roles he has undertaken, from The Second Coming to Doctor Who and Heroes, and his latest project, as the Rider in The Dark is Rising trilogy, promises to be just as different.
So, what can you tell us about your character of the Rider?
The character of the rider is the antagonist, the nemesis, the villain of the piece, he differs somewhat from the book. There’s been some poetic licence taken, and there’s an ability that the rider has that he doesn’t have in the book, which would be slightly spoilerish, but he’s got a few surprises up his sleeve in how he manifests himself. I want that kind of thing; it’s an element of surprise for the audience.
You play most of your scenes with young actor Alexander Ludwig, can you tell us about that?
Apart from a brief scene with the old ones at the beginning and at the end, I’m exclusively with Alex, yeah. He’s an amazing young man, to carry a film like this. The thing about him, apart from his abilities as an actor, which was apparent, was just a very decent young man, and I’m not just saying this to you, a few of us have said to his parents who have been around, they’ve brought up an excellent young lad and you’d like to see him succeed because he doesn’t seem tainted by all the Hollywood bullshit that we all know so much about.
Had you read the books beforehand?
No, I’d never heard of the books but as a child I was hugely passionate about Lord of the Rings. I understood the kind of passion that people feel for these books, I think they should be left for childhood. People who say the Lord of the Rings are the greatest books ever written, you’re like ‘No, they’re not, they’re childhood’. I read the book for this and enjoyed it very much, and obviously it’s close to me because it’s couched in Celtic mysticism, and a very, very intensely British book.
Are there any similarities between your character and the Dark Riders in Lord of the Rings?
I think there must be, yeah. When you read the book, I can’t believe that [Susan Cooper] wasn’t influenced in some ways by Tolkien, because in that time in the mid-’70s, Tolkien’s books had made such a huge impact. I’m sure if we dug into mythology, a man on horseback spreading terror was probably lifted by Tolkien himself, probably from Greek stuff. But yeah, I think there are similarities.
You tend to play morally ambiguous characters, yet here you are as the archetypal bad guy. Do you play that for what it is or add a few extra colours?
I’ve tried, but failed! You try to add extra colours to it, but whether that, I’ve had that debate all the way through the shoot; should you just go for unalloyed, one-dimensional, savagery, bad-guy, or you should try – think there’s virtues in both, I think I’ve tried to give it a twist, whether it’s the right thing to do, I don’t know. There are two sides to the Rider and there’s an area where I can suggest things about his character while not actually appearing as him – that just sounds so cryptic!
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