Robert Carlyle Interview

http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment/Destiny-calling-Robert-Carlyle- interview.4161919.jp
Destiny calling: Robert Carlyle interview – by James Motram (Scotsman 08 June 2008)
ROBERT CARLYLE is perched on the steps outside Glasgow University's students' union. It's mid-afternoon and the actor is taking a break from shooting Stone Of Destiny, which receives its world premiere at this month's Edinburgh Film Festival. It's his first Scottish-set film for 12 years; the last time he shot in Glasgow he was driving a bus for Ken Loach in Carla's Song, shortly after completing his most infamous role to date – that of the psychotic Francis Begbie in T. "It's just nice to be back," he says. ""It means I can go home to my kids every night."

It's just the sort of statement you'd expect from Carlyle, who has three children – Ava, six; Harvey, four; and two-year-old Pearce Joseph – with his wife of 10 years, make-up artist Anastasia Shirley. He may have played a Bond villain in 1999's The World Is Not Enough, but for Carlyle, his native Glasgow is more than satisfactory. "I want to remain here," he says. "I want to stay in Scotland. I'll never leave here. I've made that decision now." And while Stone Of Destiny only came his way after an electrician friend suggested his name to the director Charles Martin Smith, Carlyle laments the fact he's not in demand close to home.

"I don't really know what I've got to do to work for cheap in Scotland," he says, ruffling his slicked-back hair in frustration. "It's not important to me to get masses of money. It just isn't. I've been offered small budget films all over – Liverpool, Manchester, London, Newcastle. Younger filmmakers don't have the problem in sending me these scripts. They don't seem embarrassed. But up here for some reason that isn't the case. I think they look at me and think, 'He's too expensive, he just won't do that.' But nothing could be further from the truth."

Not that such integrity should come as a surprise to anyone who has followed Carlyle's career, which saw him awarded an OBE in 1999. From his unemployed steelworker in The Full Monty to the Irish father in Angela's Ashes, Carlyle – 'Bobby' to his friends – is a man of the people who specialises in playing them. Yet, at 47, he admits he's noted a change in the tenor of roles he's been offered of late, notably after taking on Adolf Hitler in 2003's TV drama Hitler: The Rise Of Evil and then King James I in Gunpowder, Treason And Plot. "I think what comes with age is a certain weight. You don't have to do an awful lot. You just have to be."

It's why he thinks he was offered a role in Stone Of Destiny, which tells the true story of Scottish Nationalist Ian Hamilton and his daring trip to London's Westminster Abbey to reclaim the so-called Stone of Scone in 1950. For the uninitiated, the Stone was an ancient block of sandstone used for coronation ceremonies and kept in Perth – until Edward I hijacked it in the 13th century and placed it in the Abbey. But while Hamilton sneaked it back over the border, Carlyle denies the film is anti-English. "The Stone is about being pro-Scottish. It's not about moaning, complaining or crying about the fact that Edward stole the Stone a few hundred years ago. It's more about what it means to the Scottish psyche."

With Stardust's young rising star Charlie Cox cast as Hamilton, Carlyle plays the role of John MacCormick, the charismatic lawyer who helped form the National Party of Scotland. "Ian had been present at quite a few of MacCormick's rallies, as it were, and thought, 'Well, this man is going to be interested in my scheme here.' Barefaced, he just went to MacCormick's door and said, 'This is what I'm planning to do.' MacCormick couldn't believe it." Yet according to Carlyle, his character subbed Hamilton £50 and wished him well. "So in a sense MacCormick was responsible for setting up this theft – he financed it!" Calling MacCormick "a solid and rooted guy", Carlyle is well aware of why he wanted to play the part. "I thought he's a good man who deserves to be remembered," he says.

As it happens, Carlyle was due to end his hiatus from Scottish film two years ago when he was set to star in True North, the story of a trawler smuggling illegal immigrants across the North Sea. But he was forced to pull out after the death of his father, Joe, a man who raised him single-handedly after his mother, Elizabeth, left their Maryhill home when he was four years old. After his father's death, Carlyle paid a pilgrimage to the various places around Glasgow where they used to go. "I would sit there and cry for hours, just remembering things, missing it. It was awful. I could see darkness and how difficult it was for my father after my mother left."

Leaving school when he was 16 with no qualifications, Carlyle briefly followed his painter and decorator father into his profession, though even this later helped him land his first major role – after Ken Loach was looking for actors with experience of the building trade when casting his 1991 film Riff Raff. By this point, Carlyle was 30, and had been entranced by the world of acting for almost a decade, hooked after buying a copy of Arthur Miller's The Crucible with a book token on his 21st birthday. In between, he'd won a place at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama but hated it, after tutors "told me that the way I sounded, I'd never get a job".

Carlyle's loyalty to British cinema, however, could never be called into question. His second film at the festival is Summer, the new feature from Kenny Glenaan, the director of the TV drama Gas Attack and "an old mucker of mine", according to Carlyle. The pair have worked together in the theatre in the past. Carlyle plays Shaun, friends with the gravely ill Daz (Steve Evets) since childhood and now facing the brutal reality of losing him. "It's very simple but very, very beautiful," says Carlyle.

Also having just completed I Know You Know, Justin Kerrigan's long-awaited follow-up to his 1999 sensation Human Traffic, Carlyle is still hoping to work on the Irvine Welsh-penned The Meat Trade, a "modern day take" on the 1850s serial killers Burke and Hare. "It's a *beep* brilliant script," says Carlyle. "It's dark – darker than dark. But it's certainly relevant in terms of people's kidneys going missing, which is the case nowadays."

The only thing Carlyle can't see himself doing is going behind the camera. Despite being a founder member of the Rain Dog Theatre Company, directing numerous productions for the stage, he has no wish to transfer his skills to the cinema. "It's very difficult with film. You've got a longer commitment. You've certainly got a longer road to travel in trying to finance the thing. That's the part I don't think I can be bothered with," he says. "I admire anyone who can do it – particularly up here. It's so difficult to get anything made at all." Still, if he ever does, you can bet it'll be in Scotland. v

Stone Of Destiny screens at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, June 21 and 23. Summer screens June 22 and 24 www.edfilmfest.org.uk