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The Herald Scotland
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Robert Carlyle: Being a moustachioed Leith psychopath 'pays the rent'
But psychos, as he himself has put it, 'pay the rent'. On camera at least, except when playing hash-smoking Highland policemen, he's typically tightly wound, clenched, intense. Perhaps it's because he suffers the same dysphoria of nomenclature as do all Roberts. Intimately, he's known as Bobby, thus avoiding the depravity of Rab. Here, he shall be Robert, because it is a good and manly name, as stated on his tax returns and ordained by God on his birth certificate. Robert is known for his dedicated preparation for each role, living rough before playing a homeless character in Antonia Bird's Safe, acquiring his Passenger-Carrying Vehicle Licence before playing a bus driver in Ken Loach's Carla's Song, and invading Poland before playing the lead character in miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil. He is widely thought to be the only Partick Thistle supporter to have played Hitler. Robert Carlyle was born on 14 April 1961 in the bohemian Maryhill area of Glasgow. His early years were peripatetic, including time spent with his father in communes in Scotland, London and Brighton. This unorthodox childhood had positive repercussions, with changing environments later aiding him in varied dramatic situations. Dad taking him to the pictures four or five times a week, watching cowboy films over and over again, probably helped too. Back in Glasgow, he disliked school, as do all sensitive and bright young people, and left at the age of 16, as everyone should. Without qualifications (later acquired at further education college), he worked for his father as a painter and decorator. However, on his 21st birthday, he bought Arthur Miller's The Crucible with some book tokens and the idea of acting took root in his noggin. NOSE HIS STUFF HE became involved with an amateur company at the Glasgow Arts Centre, his first serious part being Rudolph, an alleged red-nosed reindeer. Then came the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, which he disliked because, as he explained in 2016, 'most of the students were from down south and I didn't know how to deal with all of this. They were middle class.' Everyone had to use Received Pronunciation. 'I remember one boy from Castlemilk coming in one day speaking like [Prince Charles] and I thought, 'What the f****?''Robert walked out at Christmas, only returning after repeated pleading by the principal, Ted Argent, who promised he wouldn't have to talk posh. Not that he couldn't if he tried. He has after all talked Scouse and Eastern European to great acclaim. In 1991, Carlyle and four friends founded Raindog theatre company, which focused on playing Scots characters with real accents. That year, he appeared in The Bill, as has everyone, and starred in his first film, Riff-Raff, directed by realism-loving Ken Loach. Loach had been looking for actors who'd worked in construction, which Robert's painting career had encompassed. His first high-profile role was in ITV's Cracker where, taking inspiration from Rab De Niro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, he played a survivor of the Hillsborough football disaster who embarks on a vengeful murder afterwards, in a complete change of pace, he landed the role of chilled out Highland copper Hamish Macbeth in the eponymous BBC series. Although he has said Cracker 'changed everything for me,' the years 1996 and 1967 brought the two roles that really catapulted him to fame: irksome thug Francis Begbie in bam-haunted Trainspotting and downtrodden former steel worker Gaz in male exploitation flick The Full Monty. Robert has said of Begbie: 'I do love him. And Gaz. Both these characters have given me a tremendous career and a tremendous life.' (Image: PA) PREMIUM BOND IN that career, he played Malachy McCourt in the 1999 film adaptation of Frank McCourt's memoir, Angela's Ashes, arch-villain Renard in Bond film The World Is Not Enough, and a cannibalistic soldier in …Ravenous. In 2007, he played one of the main characters in 28 Weeks Later and, in 2008, was cast as hunky scientist Dr. Nicholas Rush in television's Stargate Universe, set in ooter space. Fantasy has never far off. In hit ABC show Once Upon a Time, he played a human-goblin hybrid called Rumplestiltskin. Goblin, aye. He was also in Lord of the Ringsy Eragon, alongside John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons. 'I go into that world every so often, the big-budget world, and then I run away to get my head back together again." In 2015, he directed The Legend of Barney Thomson, a black comedy and cinematic homage to Glasgow based on Doug Lindsay's novels and featuring Emma Thompson as Carlyle's foul-mouthed, chip-devouring mammy. In 2019, he portrayed Ogilvy in a BBC adaptation of The War of the Worlds while, in 2020, he starred as Robert Sutherland, the Conservative Prime Minister during a national crisis occasioned by a geomagnetic storm. Hardly typecasting, but as Carlyle has explained: '[T]hey wanted someone who was less obvious.' More obvious is a reprise of Begbie for The Blade Artist, a miniseries currently in production. Off-screen, Robert keeps hype and social media at arm's length – '[M]y focus must always be the work itself' – and is not an avid reader, particularly when working: can only inhabit one world at a time. READ MORE: Robert McNeil: I detest yon Romans but I dig excavating their wee fortlets RAB MCNEIL'S SCOTTISH ICONS: John Knox – the fiery preacher whose pal got burnt at the stake Rab McNeil: All this talk about celebs and their neuroses is getting on my nerves EMPIRE STRIKES BACK IN 1999, he was Ordered into the British Empire and, despite global success, he's not attracted to Hollywood or the 'falseness' of chat shows. He splits his time between Vancouver and Glasgow, of which he says: 'I love this place, I'll always be back here.' Family is everything and he's now happy as a homebody, telling the Observer in 2023: 'I've always been a bit of a loner.' Maybe not always. Everybody's a loner till some vacuous oaf shouts 'Party!'. During the Cool Britannia era, Robert was invited to everything, hanging out with Oasis and Blur. 'It was incredibly hedonistic … There wasn't so much homebody then.' Now, he's settled, contented, 'delighted with the career I have'. In 2006, he said: 'I feel like I'm the luckiest man on the planet. If I can continue doing it for the next 25 years, I'll be more than happy." Just six years to go, mate.
Daily Mirror
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Race Across The World narrator is huge nineties movie star with famous actress wife
Viewers may love the action of Race Across The World but the BBC show's "gentle commentary" has also received praise by fans who have discovered the very famous face behind the voice With no flights and no phones, five duos are attempting Race Across The World 's ultimate challenge as they embark on a 14,000km trek across Asia. Now in its fifth series, the latest line-up of contestants includes a teenage couple as well as a pair who were formerly married – and the show has already brought us plenty of dramatic moments. But while viewers may be caught up with the teams' triumphs and travel disasters, the narrator of Race Across The World has got people at home talking after realising he's a huge nineties movie star. Narrated by actor John Hannah, film fans will be familiar with the 63-year-old's extensive career on our screens having racked up an impressive career. Born in East Kilbride to a cleaner mother and toolmaker father, John has previously opened up about his childhood during an interview with The Guardian in 2014. 'My family lived in a little terraced council house in East Kilbride, Scotland 's first new town, and it was a brilliant place to grow up. The street was full of parents with young children the same age,' he said. 'My childhood memories are like everyone else's in the late 60s and early 70s – endlessly playing football in the street and being at each other's houses. I don't remember school at all – I remember summer holidays and endless sunshine. There probably wasn't any sunshine, but it feels like there was.' Although he initially trained as an electrician, John embarked on a very different path when he later studied acting at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Since then he hasn't looked back. In 1994, the Scottish actor secured his breakthrough role in Richard Curtis ' iconic romcom Four Weddings and a Funeral where he played the role of Matthew. The role even saw John nominated for Best Actor In A Supporting Role at the BAFTAs. After being catapulted into the spotlight, four years later John played Gwyneth Paltrow 's love interest in Sliding Doors. As well as this, John's other big screen credits include The Mummy, Damaged and Overboard. On our TV screens, John has starred in many high profile shows including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Frasier and Black Mirror. He also appeared in the 2021 New Year 's Day special of Taskmaster alongside Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Nicola Coughlan, Rylan Clark-Neal and Shirley Ballas. However, it's Race Across The World that many fans adore him for. '#RaceAcrossTheWorld it's great listening to John Hannah's gentle commentary again,' wrote one person on X. 'The John Hannah voice over really adds to Race Across The World,' added another. Away from his glistening career, John is married to actress Joanna Roth after meeting her at the National Theatre when they played opposite each other in Measure For Measure. Having been 'enormously attracted' to her, John invited Jonna for a picnic in Battersea Park, though things didn't go as planned. 'I was leading the way. Then, at a set of traffic lights, I put on the brakes without enough warning and Joanna ran right into the back of me,' he told MailOnline. 'I looked in my mirror and she was slumped over her steering wheel – in embarrassment, as it turned out. But I didn't know that. I scrambled out of my car, raced over to hers, gently eased her out and started comforting her.' Despite the rocky start, the pair's relationship has stood the test of time and they are parents to twins. During lockdown John discussed his life with Joanna, telling The Telegraph about his dreams to give up acting for a year. 'I dream about taking a year my wife Joanna and living somewhere like Buenos Aires in Argentina – and we think about that even more, now that we can't travel,' he said. 'We'd like to rent our house out to give us a bit of income, then spend all our time flamenco dancing and drinking caipirinhas. I like the idea of escaping being an actor for a year and working in a café somewhere very far away.'
Telegraph
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
James Fleet: ‘My wife lends me out to other women'
James Fleet enters the cafe, proffers a large, warm hand and sets out his stall for our interview. 'I'm going to be as bland as I possibly can,' he announces with an ameliorative smile worthy of dim-but-sweet Hugo Horton in The Vicar of Dibley. I'm having none of it and so I bat back the equally smiling assertion that I fully intend to gently prise something interesting out of him. 'I'm not sure I am terribly interesting,' he says, in case it helps his cause. 'Also, I don't want to say anything that gets me into trouble.' Trouble? As actors go, Fleet, 73, is not associated with any sort of argy-bargy – either off or on screen. Until now, that is. In the new Channel 5 thriller The Feud, he has pulled off inarguably his most hateful character to date. 'I did once play a Russian spy years ago,' he muses. 'But I think I was just a bit too nice to be believable. This time, being horrible came far more easily; I even got to throw a shovel at a builder.' But first to appearances; Fleet is wearing exceedingly well; full head of hair, the sort of abundant beard to have any hipster slack-jawed with envy and the effortlessly erect six-foot bearing that makes him a shoo-in for the officer class. Even though his actual beginnings were modest - he was brought up by his widowed mother in rural Aberdeenshire - he remains the embodiment of bumbling-but-kind aristocrat Tom in Four Weddings and a Funeral, once accused by Hugh Grant's Charles of being the richest man in Britain. 'Oh, no! No!' he demurred, way back in 1994 – yes really, that long ago. 'I believe we're about – seventh. The Queen, obviously, and that Branson bloke's doing terribly well.' So, you could say, is Fleet, for all his straight-from-central casting self-deprecation: 'I'm shy and not too bright. I think that makes the best actors. You don't want someone full of confidence who just plays themselves every time; ideally you want someone who hasn't got a personality.' Fleet has never stopped working – in theatre, television and film – since he left the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now rebranded as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) in the mid-1970s. Fleet's latest role as an angry racist bully in The Feud will surely see him undergo a rebrand of his own in public perceptions. Set in semi-detached suburbia, the eminently watchable six-parter opens with a snapshot of middle-class life on Shelbury Drive; a street fete with bunting, the wives bringing out secretly competitive platters of home-baked sausage rolls, the menfolk drinking bottled beer and murmuring. All terribly civilised, idyllic even. Until Emma, played by Jill Halfpenny and her husband John, aka Rupert Penry-Jones, decide they want a kitchen extension. Nothing too elaborate, not a big deal – until their erstwhile friends start lodging objections and deep cracks start to appear in the carefully maintained facade of neighbourliness. Fleet's character, Derek, lives next door with his downtrodden wife Barbara, played by Only Fools and Horses actress Tessa Peake-Jones. To say he's not happy would be an understatement. But his animus runs far deeper than common-or-garden nimbyism and from the moment he hammers on Emma's door we know, with a sense of terrible foreboding, that this will not end well. 'Derek is an absolutely abhorrent human being,' says Fleet bluntly. 'You hear about actors who stay in character on set and sometimes even bring that persona home with them. I couldn't bear to be him a single moment longer than was necessary – in between takes Tessa and I would tell jokes and make one another laugh as a sort of palate cleanser.' Peake-Jones and Fleet have known each other for many years as she is a close friend of his wife, the actress Jane Booker, 68, probably best known as the Sloaney receptionist Felicity Spicer-Gibbs in hit sitcom Don't Wait Up. During filming, Peake-Jones would mischievously text Booker revealing what fresh indignity (or worse) his monstrous character had perpetrated on her, Fleet tells me with an indulgent little 'what-can-you-do?' sigh. 'I know that disputes over planning permission can be a real flashpoint when you all live up close to one another,' he says. 'We live in a converted barn in Oxfordshire so our neighbours aren't that near, although when they built an extension they moved out for four months and left us with the sound of concrete mixers, lorries driving in and out and the builders' music blaring.' I wonder aloud if he's succumbed to grumpiness – he immediately demurs. 'I am very conscious of not being grumpy in front of my wife,' he insists, which doesn't quite answer the question. 'I don't ever complain about the way the dishwasher is stacked, although I might suggest there are other ways to do it…' The couple live there with their adult son Hamish, who prefers to stay out of the limelight and occasionally disagree about whether to get a dog. 'My wife wants a 'doodle or a 'poo but I'm not in favour of designer dogs. I want a Bill Sikes bull terrier but she says I can't have anything that looks too scary in the countryside, so we remain dog-less.' Fleet spends most of his time either painting, more of which shortly, or mending things. 'I changed the battery in my phone just the other day, which isn't at all easy,' he tells me proudly, waving about a venerable iPhone 6. For reference: the rest of the world is currently salivating over the new iPhone 16. 'I am very handy. I struggle to understand how any woman can give herself over to a man who can't put a screw in a wall or mend a tap. My wife lends me out to other women who need washers replaced; they shower me with such praise that I'm sure their husbands must hate me.' He is beaming with satisfaction at the thought before confiding his ambition to quit acting completely and be a full-time mender-of-things and artist. His canvases sound the very antithesis of bland. 'Richard Curtis has bought a couple of them, including a surreal one set in the Edinburgh festival featuring people in costume running about and fighting with one another. It would be wonderful to devote myself to that.' Maybe in time, but right now he still can't resist the allure of an intriguing play or a challenging film. To his knowledge, he can't recall turning anything down, and suggests I consult the internet if I want to know more about his years at the Royal Shakespeare Company, or his appearance in vampire movie Wolf Manor, as he really can't recall them. My question about Four Weddings is met with an 'Oh Christ, not again'. Of Dibley, he says: 'Everyone's dead apart from Dawn. And me.' While Fleet is keen to push boundaries, he despairs that younger generations are hooked on rubbish. 'I despair of the way young people watch Marvel superheroes and TikTok, where everyone breaks the fourth wall,' he says, in grave danger of getting fired up. 'It started out with Fleabag which was well done, but now everyone's at it, because they think it's cool. But it creates viewers who can't understand emotional depth or cope with too much complexity. 'If I had my way they would watch classic black and white films or French movies which are far more interesting than these franchises made for a global audience. Or they could start in domestic noir territory with The Feud, where nobody is quite as they seem and that nice posh bloke from The Vicar of Dibley turns out to be a violent bigot... The Feud begins on Channel 5 on Monday April 14 at 9pm
The Guardian
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mark Bonnar: ‘I wanted to be a historian, then a drummer, and then I just wanted to be employed'
Born in Edinburgh, Mark Bonnar, 56, studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In 2017, he won a best actor Bafta Scotland for his role in Unforgotten, and his other TV work spans Line of Duty, Catastrophe and the Netflix series Department Q, which is released in May. His films include Ridley Scott's Napoleon, Operation Mincemeat and Last Breath, which is out now. He is married to actor Lucy Gaskell, has two children and lives in Hertfordshire. What is your greatest fear? That we're all going to hell in a handcart and Trump is driving. Which living person do you most admire, and why? David Attenborough, because he introduced me to the world. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Pedantry. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Lack of empathy. What was your most embarrassing moment? I did an interview years ago and, after it finished, I made some passing comment about sex getting better as you get older – and they used that as the headline. The day the paper came out, I was in a restaurant with the family when a woman on the table next to me leaned over and said, in a sultry voice, 'I read your article this morning.' Describe yourself in three words Chaotic, daft and loving. What do you most dislike about your appearance? My disappearing hair. What is your most unappealing habit? People-pleasing. What scares you about getting older? Instead of saying, 'I tripped up', you have to use the words, 'I had a fall.' What did you want to be when you were growing up? First, I wanted to be a historian, then a drummer, and after that I just wanted to be employed. And I still do. What is your guiltiest pleasure? Daydreaming. What does love feel like? Like a warm velvet glove. When did you last cry, and why? I cry if one of the kids says something profound without knowing it; I cry at adverts; I cry at Strictly Come Dancing. What would you like to leave your children? A sense of wonder. What single thing would improve the quality of your life? Less plastic. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion What do you consider your greatest achievement? Being married for 17 years and having two amazing children. What has been your closest brush with the law? I got arrested at Luton airport in the days when I still smoked weed and had a little bit on me. The customs people were really serious about it – then when the police came it was, 'Argh, another actor' and they let me go. What keeps you awake at night? Not much. Would you rather have more sex, money or fame? I have enough of the other two, so money. How would you like to be remembered? A loving father and wonderful husband, and the best actor of my generation! What is the most important lesson life has taught you? If it scares you, do it. Tell us a joke What do you call an exploding monkey? A baboom.
