Star Clare: Why I originally turned down movie classic Gregory’s Girl
CLARE Grogan has revealed she initially turned down her role in hit film Gregory’s Girl because she mistakenly feared the director’s intentions may not be entirely honourable.
She recalls she was still at school when acclaimed film director Bill Forsyth spotted her working as a waitress in a Glasgow restaurant.
When his friend asked for her phone number, she refused to hand it over.
She recalled: “I used to work there part-time after school and weekends and Bill used to come in quite regularly. He wasn’t somebody that I paid any particular attention to.
“One night when he was leaving the restaurant his friend, who was also a film director, said, ‘Bill’s making a film next summer and he thinks you’d be really good for it. Can we take your number?’ I just went, ‘no, not happening’.
“My mum had always said to me – don’t be handing out your number to strange men.
“So in my head I’m thinking, ‘I’m going to somebody’s flat with someone with a camcorder!’ I didn’t know what to think.”
Clare, who was 17 at the time, said it was only the wise words of the restaurant manager that changed her mind.
“She said, ‘You know Clare, he really is a film director, you might want to reconsider that’.
“And I was like, ‘Well, he knows where to find me’. That combination of naivety and the arrogance of youth.”
The actress and former Altered Images singer told Kaye Adams on her How To Be 60 podcast: “I had no idea what I was doing, but for whatever reason, that summer I left school, we made the film and I got signed to a major record label. It’s astounding to me. My family were totally baffled.”
Clare was cast as Susan, the romantic lead in the 1980s coming-of-age rom-com, which
Bill Forsyth wrote and directed.
The film went on to win three Baftas for Best Film, Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay, with actor John Gordon Sinclair bagging the Bafta for Best Newcomer.
Gregory’s Girl was ranked 30th in the British Film Institute’s top 100 British films of the 20th century. Forsyth, now 77, went on to win another Bafta in 1984 with the film Local Hero.
Clare revealed she saw Gregory’s Girl for the first time five years ago with her daughter Elle, who was then 15. She said: “I thought if I’m ever going to do this, it’s a great moment to share with Elle. The BFI in London did a big screening. I thought it might be my last chance to ever see it on a big screen
“She was laughing her head off, but actually cringing like there was no tomorrow at me and Gordon snogging – ‘does Dad know about this?,’ she said.
“It was a glorious moment. It was for me to say to her, ‘Expect the unexpected. And it’s not always bad stuff, it’s good stuff as well. I never imagined that 40 years on
I’d be sitting in this room with you, watching this film for the first time’.”
At the same time as starring in Gregory’s Girl, Clare also had a successful music career in the 1980s with Scottish pop band Altered Images.
She was only 19 when the group found fame with hits including Happy Birthday and I Could Be Happy, but the band split up just three years later. Clare now performs with a reformed version of the group, which features her musician husband Stephen Lironi.