Christopher Eccleston says white, straight men are ‘quite rightly’ the ‘new pariah’ in entertainment industry

‘I can feel that the opportunities are shrinking, as they should do,’ actor said

Christopher Eccleston has said that straight white men are “quite rightly” seeing acting opportunities “shrink” nowadays.

The Doctor Who star recently appeared in the Channel 4 series Close To Me and stars opposite Lenny Henry in My Name is Leon, a one-off BBC drama about a nine-year-old mixed-race child living within the care system in the Eighties.

But appearing on 5Live on Thursday (9 June), Eccleston told Nihal Arthanayake that he was struggling with his career.

“Quite rightly, I’m a dinosaur now,” the 58-year-old said. “I’m white, I’m middle-aged, I’m male and I’m straight. We are the new pariah in the industry.

“We’re all seen through the lens of Harvey Weinstein et al and I can feel that the opportunities are shrinking, as they should do. I’ve lived off the fat of the land for 30 years in my career.”

He continued: “But I still have to pay my mortgage, I still have to support my kids. So I don’t welcome the uncertainty at all… the unpredictability was far more welcome to a younger person.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Eccleston said that he “felt like a failure” and was “very disappointed” with the way his career had gone.

With Arthanayake sounding incredulous at these comments, Eccleston explained: “In the Nineties, I had two incredible film roles: Jude in Jude the Obscure and Derek Bentley in Let Him Have It… I fell short in both those performances. Those were my chances to really, really hit it and have far more influence and control over the kind of stuff I did.”

He added that he was “not finished yet”.

My Name is Leon airs on Friday 10 June at 9pm on BBC Two.