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Award-winning actor Christopher Eccleston reveals why taking on the role of one of Britain's enduring and enigmatic icons was difficult to refuse.

"I'd been watching and reading about John Lennon avidly for over 20 years or more. I'm absolutely fascinated by him – he seems to have been kind, brutal, funny, arrogant, insecure, passionate and brilliant, in short – human.

"I wanted to play Lennon because of Robert Jones's script. He captured Lennon's character and the world in which he lived with imagination and great originality. I had three weeks from accepting the role to prepare, so I read, watched and listened to everything I could get my hands on," says the 46-year-old actor, who starred in the relaunch of Doctor Who in 2005.

"I re-read the Philip Norman biography and watched many documentaries and videos, but the chief source was the interview John gave to Jann Wenner, for Rolling Stone magazine," explains the star of critically-acclaimed dramas The Second Coming, Flesh And Blood and Hillsborough.

"I think Lennon was intensely human and his flaws were amplified by fame. He had to wrestle with his qualities and his demons in a very public forum. Lennon had a very contradictory nature. I was hugely sympathetic to what happened to him when he was a young boy of only five years old – his mother and father told him to choose between them. It was insightful because I felt that incident drove him on in both good and bad ways.

"The breadth and originality of his and the Beatles music is astounding, for example the leap from Love Me Do to Tomorrow Never Knows. I've got most of The Beatles music and music by John. There is a real confessional quality to his work. My personal favourite of John's, and I think a key to his life and this film, is Julia.

The Salford-born actor, who trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, also sought help with perfecting Lennon's accent.

"I had a brilliant dialect coach in Jill McCullough. John had a very distinctive voice, accent and physicality, the challenge was to capture his spirit without just resorting to impersonation. The costume and make-up departments were really brilliant and took great care in to perfecting the shapes and the look of Lennon, on a tiny budget.

The 90-min film which includes the famous bed protest also features the iconic Two Virgins cover in which an unabashed John and Yoko bare all for the cameras. But for Chris and his co-star Naoko Mori this was more of a challenge.

"Nudity – that's the hard stuff to do, but you just have to get on with it," says Chris. "I'd worked with Naoko before but we weren't naked in Doctor Who!" laughs Chris. "We had a good rapport on set... with nudity, actors always watch each other's backs, literally, instead of looking anywhere else."

So what's next?

"I have just finished filming the first episode of The Accused, by Jimmy McGovern. I've worked with Jimmy a lot. I'm excited. It's a really good script."