The Herald - The Herald Magazine
I’m going to use all the hurt and anger to propel me through life. I won’t be bitter and twisted
ACTOR GARY LAMONT ON HIS CASTLEMILK ROOTS, HIS ROLES ... AND FACING THE FUTURE AFTER LOSS
FOR Gary Lamont this is the best of times and the worst of times. Career-wise, right now the 39-year-old actor – originally from Castlemilk in Glasgow – is flying. You may have caught him on Sunday night on BBC One at the heart of the restaurant drama Boiling Point in which he plays Dean, maitre d’ and life and soul of troubled restaurant Point North. He’s also just wrapped on a star-studded Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster, Rivals, which will air next year.
This should be his moment, he knows. Both these roles are symbolic of how far Lamont has come since his days on River City. “Chef’s kiss, these two characters,” he admits as we sit at a dinner table in his friend’s house in Glasgow’s south side.
But in the real world I’m also sitting beside a grieving son. Less than a week ago Lamont was at his father’s funeral. Life and art could not be more cruelly counterposed.
This year, Lamont says, has been underpinned with the knowledge that his dad John was unwell.
“The week before we started Boiling Point we thought we were going to lose him. So this whole year, yes, this brilliant career stuff. But underpinned with the real stuff.”
As is our conversation. It’s a Tuesday at the end of September and Lamont is understandably in a raw, hurting place.
“I’m walking about with five layers of skin off,” he admits. But he also can’t help but be his natural effusive self. And so in our hour together we bounce between pain and joy, between grief and laughter. The real stuff.
After years living in London, Lamont has moved back to Glasgow. Post-Covid, he says, London was getting tough. But it was his father’s illness that really pulled him home. He wanted to do his part.
“He was a pleasure to care for, so it was a no-brainer to come and support him for a bit,” Lamont says.
Caring, I suggest, is the last act of love we can offer to those close to us. “It really is,” he agrees. In the circumstances it might seem irrelevant to talk about work. But he’s proud of what he’s done on Boiling Point and Rivals, especially given the circumstances. And maybe that’s worth celebrating.
“I had to do the two of them at the same time for a month this year. I would get a week with Rivals, a week with Boiling Point.”
The two characters couldn’t be more different. In Boiling Point, Dean is pure, dead Glasgow. Rivals? Not so much. “My accent for Rivals is RP, posh, English, snooty, big Tory England,” Lamont points out.
“The working experience this year has been ‘pinch me’,” he adds. “Both so completely different, but life-changing,
let’s be completely honest. Life-changing for me.”
In career terms it sounds like he’s arrived at the place he wanted to be.
“I’ve got to the door that I’ve been waiting to get to,” Lamont says. “I’m absolutely nowhere near done. But definitely in terms of level of magnitude … There’s certainly some opportunities that land in my inbox that I’m properly flabbergasted by. But I feel ready. It’s taken all this time. To be almost 40 and have these experiences … I know what they mean. The financial gains; I’m not going to blow it. I mean, I have a nice car, but it’s not all going on that.”
Are you saying you’re too old to spend it on sex and drugs and rock and roll, Gary?
“I’m far too old for it. I’m looking for a house and a dug.”
Lamont’s childhood and past are invariably close to the surface at the moment. The boy he was is in his head. If I say the word “Castlemilk”, I begin …
“Home, home,” he immediately answers. “I think we moved when I was 16, 17. We live in close proximity, but we’ve not been there for a long time. But home, home, home. The years there were the happiest of our family’s lives. We had not a lot, but what we did have was community, neighbours.
“And I didn’t know it was rough. It was not until I went to drama school and I’d say I was from Castlmilk and people would be like …” He pulls a face. “… As if I’ve got a
knife and I’m going to stab them.
“It suffers that overhang from the 1960s. Those outlying towns, they do get a rough deal still. I quite liked saying ‘I’m from Castlemilk’ because nobody would mess with you.”
Lamont’s father John was a taxi driver when he was growing up. His mother, Grace, was at home until his sister went to school when she started working for the Jeely Piece Club in Castlemilk. (She would become its longest-serving member of staff and still sits on the board.)
Lamont is the middle of three children. “We’re completely different. My brother has his own plumbing and heating business. My sister works in events. She’s got her own business. And then there’s me, the actor. I’ve always been the odd one out from the five of us. I’m from Castlemilk and I’m going to go to drama school.”
He thinks, though, that is what makes him stand out.
“My difference is what has made me successful. No-one really looks like me, no-one sounds like me. I’m always a wild card entry to things. That’s been my superpower. I don’t follow the norm. My height, my build, my looks, my background; I have always celebrated my differences because they are what make me who I am.”
There was another area of difference, of course. His sexuality. Lamont came out publicly when he was playing gay hairdresser Robbie in River City. But he grew up in a culture that didn’t really have a language to discuss such things.
“Looking back, you think, of course you were different. But I didn’t have the vocabulary in me to define what it was.
“One of my good friends came out when we were 18. So thankfully we got in tow together and we discovered going out dancing in the safety of each other.”
Were Lamont’s parents accepting?
“They were,” he says.
“But I had people in my own life, their families disowned them. I remember that happening quite close to home. And that’s what made me decide I have to test them.
“I was almost quite vicious. ‘Here’s what’s happening, and if you don’t like it, tough.’ And my mum was a bit like, ‘Oh my God, you were horrible.”
But in the end his parents were exemplary, he says. “They proved to be the family that I thought they would be.”
But all parents should be, he adds. “Families should not bring children into the world if they can’t accept them, full stop.”
IT feels like a different country now, I suggest. “It does. Listen, you’re always going to be marginalised and there’s a vigilance one must always have. But I’m tough. I come from tough stock. Being from Castlemilk, from Glasgow, that’s just innate in there.
“But then, in turn, my sexuality is one of the least important things or interesting things about me. It doesn’t define who I am. Of course it’s part of my make-up, but there’s 1001 other things that are way more interesting and important and drive my life.”
As an actor, though, was there a danger it could have confined him?
“I remember getting the script for River City and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to get it. I’m going to be the big gay hairdresser off the telly.’
“And that’s who I was for a long time. I’m sure the character of Dean will also define me. That type of character is a safe place for me. I can do it justice. I know these men, so I can do it with care and love. It’s never going to be sent up or ridiculed and I do feel an importance to still represent people like myself. It is a privilege to do that representing.”
But that’s not all he can do. “I left River City and I did The North Water and Outlander and played farmers and sailors. If people want to pigeonhole me, I don’t want to work with them. Not every role is going to be right for me, but I do have more to me than that.”
He left River City in 2016. What does he think Robbie is doing now?
“Maybe he’s doing Milan catwalks. He’s backstage tonging and shouting and drinking Champagne.”
Lamont opted to go to London. “I had no anonymity in Glasgow.” He got it back when he moved away.
“I’m now desperately trying to keep hold of it and I don’t think I’m going to have it for very long again.”
There were other reasons to relocate. “I had a big break-up. I turned 30. I just knew that inner hum. I knew I could do more. I needed a bit of life experience.
My difference is what has made me successful. No-one really looks like me, noone sounds like me. I’m always a wild card. That’s been my superpower. I don’t follow the norm