Bobby's Back In Town

From one of the most memorable psychopaths in cinematic history to six years as a sinister sorcerer, Robert Carlyle is a bona fide Glaswegian treasure… and a grafter too, as The Scots Magazine discovered.

- Frank Grice

ANY actor’s job is simple in theory, but not necessarily so in execution: convince the audience, for however long they happen to be watching, that you are someone else. We know it’s not as easy as it sounds, and for some in particular it’s barely achievable – but when you consider the enduring, universal appeal of Robert Carlyle, you see someone who inhabits his characters so effortlessly that you can’t help being drawn in.

One could say that Carlyle, the product of an unusual upbringing in Maryhill who decided relatively late that he wanted to be an actor – with none of that childhood stage-school moulding to help him on his way – has carved himself an impressive career simply by playing psychopaths. Yet he is so much more.

“I used to get offered a lot of work like that,” Carlyle says. “It’s not a problem for me at all. You tend to find – and I think this is something most actors would agree with – those kinds of parts are just more interesting.

“But also, I am a maniac.” He chuckles as his face cracks into a wide grin. “That’s why I was cast in those roles. And I’m attracted to edgy characters. Still, I do strive to mix it up – to move as far away as possible from the previous film each time.”

Mixing it up is one of Carlyle’s major strengths. Having cemented his “psychopathic” credentials as the iconic and bizarre Begbie in Danny Boyle’s landmark 1990s film Trainspotting, it’s taken 20 years to return to the character. Begbie effectively established him beyond his early – and celebrated – TV roles as a starkly demented serial killer in Cracker and a good-natured Highland policeman in Hamish Macbeth.