ROBERT Carlyle says it's tough to be a Scot - especially when Jeremy Irons takes the mickey out of your accent.
Robert was in London for the royal premiere of Eragon, in which he plays the film's shapeshifting villain, but when he started to talk about his scary new role, co-star Jeremy Irons butted in to ask if anyone needed a translator.
"Can you understand his accent?
" teased the English star.
"How very dare you," laughed Robert.
"I think I'll make it worse now.
"It's difficult being a Scot because you tend to get stereotyped, so I've spent my whole career proving that I can do other things."
And Robert says he's very proud of the huge range of roles on his CV from the last 20 years - from Begbie in Trainspotting and Bond villain in The World Is Not Enough, to a Sheffield stripper in The Full Monty and his portrayal of Adolf Hitler.
"You're giving me visions of a stripping Adolf Hitler now," he joked.
"There's loads of stuff I'd still love to do because I'm always keen to change, to try new stuff and to move on.
"My role in Eragon was very different to anything I'd done before, so I thought - yeah, let's have a go at this."
The actor was in playful mood as he prepared for the royal premiere of his first ever fantasy film on Monday night.
The big-budget movie is following in the footsteps of Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia to try and capture the imaginations of family audiences worldwide.
Carlyle co-stars with Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich and Sienna Guillory in the fantasy adventure, riding his own black dragon, throwing fireballs around, and generally making life very difficult for the film's young hero, as they fight the traditional battle between good and evil.
The film was screened privately for Robert in a Glasgow cinema last Friday - but his children Ava, Harvey and Pearce won't be allowed to see it when it opens this week - because it's too scary.
"I've got three children all under five," Robert said. "They're too young."
And he also revealed that they only have the sketchiest ideas of what their father does for a living anyway.
"Ava, my oldest, thinks I go away and get photographed because she sees pictures of me around the place."
But she's not too sure about her father's new collection of photographs. Three hours in make-up has transformed him into a very scary looking specimen.
Robert said: "Now she says: 'is that you daddy? I don't know if that's you'."
Robert appears on screen with a long red wig and pale, scarred skin.
A pair of otherworldly blue contract lenses transform his normal brown eyes - and made it very difficult for the actor to see.
"It took three hours to put on and an hour and a half to take off," he recalled.
"The make up girl was squeezing my face and sticking things in my eyes.
"
Yet Robert says the heavy sessions helped him stay in character.
He said: "When you get a script, you don't think make-up will take three hours a day. Your concentration levels have to bevery high.
And it's important to stay focussed.
"In the past, as a young actor, I made the mistake of dropping a scene because I'd been having a laugh and chatting beforehand instead of paying attention, so I've learned to stay in my trailer, keeping my head."
But there was no question of Robert taking his creepy character home to his family.
"These films are easy to switch off from rather than the issue-based films about drugs or homelessness," Robert said.
"It's hard to be in those worlds and then go home and not think about it. Here, you're putting it on with the make-up, so you have to enjoy it.
It's less about angst, more about play."
The film's director, Stefen Fangmeier, also revealed he had a fight of his own when he told studio bosses he wanted Carlyle for his villain.
The American director said: "I always wanted Bobby, and actors like Gary Lewis and Jeremy Irons.
"
But the studio wasn't so sure because they thought that the 5ft 8in actor might be too small for the role.
"It doesn't matter that he's smaller," said Stefan. "Evil doesn't have to be huge with big muscles - and Bobby does a terrific job.
"The only thing I worried about was that a Scottish accent on screen might be hard to understand."
Robert said: "We had a chat about the accent, and thought about changing it to an eastern European accent, but in the end a English accent suited the character."
He added with a smile: "And to a Scot, an English accent can be very evil.
"
Robert also revealed that he was very keen to take on the role of Durza in the movie.
He said: "It was really good fun but really hard work.
"I go into the big-budget world every so often, and then I run away to get my head back together again.
"I really wanted to get out of bed in the morning and go to work, and that's as big a compliment as you can pay. I felt that it was a good thing from start to finish."
It's all a long way from Robert's beginnings.
After attending classes at Glasgow Arts Centre, Robert enrolled in the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. The actor's breakthrough role came in Ken Loach's 1990 building site drama, Riff Raff.
Unforgettable performances in popular TV thriller Cracker and as psychotic thug Begbie in 1996's Trainspotting followed, along with gentler roles as cop Hamish MacBeth and Sheffield stripper Gaz in The Full Monty.
The 45-year-old has appeared in blockbusters before of course - most notably as a Bond villain in The World Is Not Enough and in The 51st State alongside Samuel L. Jackson, but he usually favours grittier, political films such as Trainspotting and Carla's Song.
Early next year Robert stars as a homeless man who embarks on a doomed love affair with a pregnant mum (Shameless star Anne-Marie Duff) in Born Equal.
But there's one kind of film he says he'd still love to do.
"I like westerns - A Man Called Horse and Jeremiah Johnson, but I've never been offered one," he said.
And he'd jump at the chance of going on horseback in future.
He said: "The nearest I've been is a sort of western called Ravenous - it was a cannibal western, so a western with a wee edge there."
He is currently working on bloodthirsty thriller 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to Danny Boyle's hit film, 28 Days Later. But he saves his real horror for something else -the smoking ban in Scottish pubs.
The star arrived carrying a packet of cigarettes and when the conversation turned to the upcoming cigarettes ban in English pubs, he's sweet reason.
"Personally, I understand there are good things attached to this and I totally agree with it in terms of a public place," he said, cheerfully. "I don't have any problem with it at all.
"But a pub - I don't get it. If you're concerned about your health there then go and work somewhere else. There used to be non-smoking bars, you could always go there instead.
"
Eragon is out on Friday.
'We had a chat about the accent and decided it should be English.
News RSS