Robert Carlyle’s life has been defined by two remarkable characters: the explosively violent Begbie, and Gaz in The Full Monty. Here, he talks about his Glasgow childhood, Britpop hedonism – and playing the PM…
It was 1997, and Robert Carlyle was in his mid-30s, when he first played the stripping Sheffield steelworker Gaz in The Full Monty. Last year, to get ready to play him again – this time for an eight-part TV series – he sat himself down to watch the film. He seems slightly embarrassed to admit it – he’s not the kind of actor who likes to watch himself. “And I’m not about trawling back through something from 20-odd years ago,” he says. But The Full Monty was calling him to South Yorkshire, so trawl back he did. He decided that he would watch a few minutes, then he would move on. “And I sat there and watched the whole thing.” He was surprised to find that it still worked, even after 25 years. “I don’t know if I can say this, but I really enjoyed it. It really stands up.”
The original Full Monty told the story of six unemployed men from Sheffield who put on a DIY strip show at the working men’s club. It was an indie film, shot on a very small budget, and it almost went straight to video; a last-minute re-edit saved it from obscurity and it went on to be a staggering global success, making £200m at the box office. Carlyle’s Gaz is the ringleader, a schemer and a dreamer trying to keep enough money in his pocket to put the heating on when his son comes to stay.
