I thought The Full Monty would flop says star Carlyle
ROBERT Carlyle admits he thought The Full Monty movie wouldn’t be a success when it came out in 1997 and had to overcome doubts about playing Gaz again.
As he returns to the role for an eight-part Disney+ series, Robert said: “I guess I’d lost sight of the film and what it was about, you know? I started thinking, ‘I don’t know whether this is gonna work.’ ”
Robert, 62, says he feels little has changed in the years since the film about the Sheffield former steel workers was made.
He told Radio Times: “Look what’s happened in 25 years: seven prime ministers, eight northern regeneration policies, **** all’s changed. As soon as I saw that spelt out in the opening, I knew it would be OK.
“How many years of austerity has it been? It feels like 55 years of Tory rule and people have been suffering. You see it in Gaz, his friends and family. There’s no
doubt things need to change. People have had enough.”
A warm welcome from Sheffield calmed any jitters. He said: “People came up to me in the street and said the same thing: ‘Thanks for coming back, Robert.’ Jesus, man. It was beautiful.”
He said Gaz, like his Trainspotting character Begbie, has “followed me my whole life”.
“So of course you wonder what’s happened [to him],” he said. “There’s a poignancy to revisiting these guys in middle age. OK, late middle age! There’s nothing wrong with a bit of nostalgia, as long as you don’t wallow in it.”
The series has been penned by the original writer, Simon Beaufoy, and has most of the cast including Mark Addy, Lesley Sharp, Paul Barber and Tom Wilkinson.
Missing is Guy, played by Hugo Speer, who was sacked mid-shoot amid claims of inappropriate conduct, which he denies.
Robert still recalls his surprise when the film came out. He said: “That tsunami of love was difficult for me to understand so I went to see it in Glasgow on a Saturday night, baseball cap on, and sat at the back. The reactions were just astonishing. People were cheering and screaming and laughing. It was wonderful.”
In the series Gaz is a porter in a psychiatric hospital with a few side hustles. “Nothing is going to change Gaz,” Robert said. “He still has misguided schemes and plans, and there’s a sadness to that, but he’s got a heart the size of a bus.”
● On Disney+ from June 14.