Christopher Eccleston is deceptively tall: When we go to shake hands, we both miss. That's one way of breaking the ice. Another is to get rum talking 
about running. A fast marathon runner, he does "four or five 1O-milers a week". As a dabbler in the loneliest sport, I can tell you that's serious. 
"I've been seen running along the embankment in Newcastle shouting my lines out, not realising people are staring at me," he admits with a smile. 
"I'm passionate about running and I'm passionate about acting." SALFORD-BORN ECCLESTON DOES A GREAT DEAL OF EACH IN Heart:, the new thriller written 
by Jimmy McGovern and directed by Hillsborough and Cracker man Charles McDougall. It's the latest in a steady stream of successes for the lanky, 
likeable, working-class anti-hero whose film credits include Let Him Have It (1991), Shallow Grave (1994), Jude (1996) and Elizabeth (1998). On TV 
he's established himself as a McGovern regular, featuring in the above-named McDougall programmes as well as Hearts And Minds and the tremendous 
Our Friends In The North. This year sees rum enjoy- ing a small role in David Cronenberg's EiXistenZ, and starring with Renee Zellweger in Boaz Yakiris 
A Price Above Rubies. Then he reunites with Jude director Michael Winterbottom for a "convoluted comedy about family relationships"; Old New Borrowed 
Blue. "Going from Jude to a comedy will raise "a few eyebrows, but Michael's always trying to stretch himself, jump from genre to genre. He plays 
his own tune, walks his own path." It's a trait Eccleston clearly admires, the script being the most important thing to him. Despite plentiful further 
movie offers, his roots remain in British television drama, which he clarifis shaped his worldview. "I almost feel like I belong to an earlier generation 
of actors. I'm a fish out of water with all those stylish, empty films. At drama school, I put my head down and dedicated myself to the craft, as a way 
out of a factory job or whatever. It was always television that made me think I could be an actor. Growing up on a Manchester council estate, you dont 
go to the theatre! We went to Old Trafford. And films were a treat. But the television was always there. It had quality and vision y'know, Boys From 
The Blackstuff, the early Alan Clarke films, well-written sit-coms like Till Death Do Us Part. I saw actors like Bernard Hill, Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, 
and recognised their characters. So I'm in my element. And Jude too, dealt with "themes about the exclusion of working-Class people from the high halls 
of academia. Often I take a job, much to the frustration of agents, not because itll get me higher prestige or status, but because it's got something 
to say; Hillsborough, though, was for me the most impprtant piece of work I'll ever do. We tried there to reverse public opinion, which had been 
manipulated by a predominantly right-wing press, who said Hillsborough happened because of the liverpool supporters. That's a great lie. And we got 
it back on the agenda. I've met people on the street who've said they see things differently now. That demonstrated exactly how powerful our television 
culture can be. If a programme can be confrontarional and respect an audience's intelligence, can give a voice to people who dont have one, then we're 
frustrating the general dumbing-down." 
WHICH BRINGS US TO HEART, WHICH CHRIS SAYS McGOVERN described to him as a high-concept, plot-driven, Saturday-night thriller. He uses the heart as a 
symbol: we all see it as the seat of our emotions - we talk about a broken heart, the sacred heart. My character, Gary, has a heart attack and a 'change 
of heart'. It was sweetened for me by the psychology of the jealousy. Gary's possessed by it. He has his own perception of reality, imagining signals 
between his wife and her lover until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. It's perverse. ..or perhaps not, perhaps it's very human. There's almost an 
erotic content in it for him." 
With lashings of gore and sex, Heart is so over the top that it makes McGovern's The Lakes seem plausible. "The challenge for me was to gain some empathy 
for this bullying, paranoid monster, using Jimmy's dark humour. People enjoy indulging the sicker side of their natures! Heart's a shocking roller coaster. 
People are buzzing when they come out. One critic passed out in a screening. Fantastic!" It's an oddly un-British film ... "It's not very American, either. 
It's more ...Italian. Visceral, intense, vicious and cathartic. It's frightening to think all this goes on inside one mans head! That's the Irishness of 
Jimmy. He will push and push...look at some of the early Cracker episodes. Heart was once intended for Cracker, I think, but it was too big and too 
elaborate." So you are too big for television! "Never! I'm trying to get this thing called Strangeways R.I.P. made, which is about the Strangeways riots 
and Manchester, and the music and drug culture that grew up around 1990. We're trying to get that made for TV. That's still where you get the best scripts. 
It changed my life, now I want to give something back."