He's a good actor but was clearly far too old for the role,compared with the actors playing the other Beatles, about six years older than Lennon when he died and only abot six years younger than the actor playing his dad.
Eccleston said that himself. But does it matter? Most of the people saying Matt Smith was too young to play the Doctor are eating their words now.* The point is that he gave a good performance (although I actually think Naoko Mori was better as Yoko).
*Yes, I specifically used Doctor Who as an example because Eccleston used to be the Doctor too.
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"Just deal with your girlfriend's cheesy feet. She puts up with your cheesy face." - Jack Dee
I was thinking the same thing as I watched, because Eccleston's age showing in his face, especially in the "younger" years, did actually distract me a little at times, and took me out of the scene in certain moments.
However, that negative is kind of balanced out by the quality of the performance, so I give him a bit of a free pass on it, because he was so good in the role.
When I think up a decent sig...I'll let you know.
I thought that at first but his impression was so spot on that I can allow a bit of artistic license.
That was my thought and sorry to all the CE fans but to me he's getting more and more miscast these days.
shareif you wanna see a good young lennon - go see andrew knott (spooks code 9, the history boys, gavin and stacey) in backbeat when it starts its west end run. it premiered up here in glasgow and he is absolutely great, perfectly capturing young lennon's arrogance and sneer plus the fact that he was a pretty funny guy. Its a fantastic show in general and the cast all play the music live which adds a great deal to the exerience - saw it twice in its run here and would def go again!
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I did think he was a bit old, although it was mainly noticeable during the black and white 'moptop' era in the film.
For a good young Lennon - see the film Backbeat - with Ian Hart - he's played John Lennon twice on screen - the other being 'the hours and times'.
Do you have monkeys in Scotland?
~No, but if we did we'd probably deep fry them!
Well the obvious age difference was telling during the 1964 sequence. So long as he had the glasses on I suspended my disbelief &, yeah, he looked like Lennon. Once he took off the lenses, though, it was hard not to notice that he didn't look anything like Lennon.
Maybe not as bad a bit of casting as Jason Robards playing Al Capone (!) (I forget in which movie) but...
Once "Lennon" got older & met up w/ Yoko I was more accepting of Eccleston in the role.
I agree, CE was much too old to play the younger Lennon, he looked so much older than John did. CE is a brilliant actor, but just way too old
shareI got over his old face and extra few inches of height. I just liked how he acts. Looking older sort of shows how John felt. He seemed to reach the heights of fame and do all the fun things by age 25 and after that was finding it hard to enjoy things, so he was like an older man than most.
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