Christopher Eccleston turned down ‘Billy Elliot’ because it’s “offensive” to the working class experience
nme.comBilly Elliot, revealing he found its depiction of the working class “offensive”.The actor, who is well-known for appearing in Doctor Who and is currently starring in True Detective: Night Country, said he was offered the role of the father in the 2000 film, which tells the story of a working-class boy who discovers a passion for ballet.Speaking to The Independent, Eccleston said he didn’t like the portrayal of Billy’s parents as being against his artistic ambitions, revealing his own parents – a forklift driver and a cleaner – were very supportive of his own aspirations.“[I’m] tired of seeing working-class parents portrayed as being vehemently against their kids going into the arts,” he said. “What was that fucking ballet film everyone went mad for?”“I was offered a meeting to play the father,” Eccleston went on to recall. “But I said I’m not going to do that, it’s offensive.
It was a middle-class view of the working-class experience, made for the American market. Fuck it!”Eccleston has previously expressed disappointment at the lack of working class representation in the arts, saying his working class background put him at a disadvantage of the “boy’s club” of public school-educated actors.“If ever I go up against anybody who is from a middle class background, or has been public school educated – and particularly if they’ve been to Oxbridge – I’m at a disadvantage,” he told Sky News in 2017. “They have a superior education to me, and also it’s a ‘boy’s club’.“I do have an advantage, because I’m white and I’m male,” he admits, “but it was a lot easier for me than it is for the equivalent [today].
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