Scottish actor Robert Carlyle NEEDS to be in more frock flicks! Because he’s talented, handsome, and that accent … grrr! He burst onto the scene with his star turn in modern-set Trainspotting and since then has done a solid number of frock flicks, but not enough. Let’s count down what he has done and hope for more!
Priest in Being Human (1994)
A comedy/drama in which a single soul experiences various incarnations across time. Carlyle is in the “caveman” segment.
Col. Ives/F.W. Colqhoun in Ravenous (1999)
A horror/comedy/Western film about cannibals in 1840s California.
Plunkett in Plunkett & Macleane (1999)
A BEYOND-WTFrock costumed story of two highwaymen in 1740s England.
Malachy (Dad) in Angela’s Ashes (1999)
An adaptation of a memoir about a poor Irish family in the 1930s.
Maj. Ian Campbell in To End All Wars (2001)
Set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II.
David O’Sullivan in Black & White (2002)
Set in Australia in 1959, “a young aboriginal man who was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the murder of a nine-year-old girl on what was considered questionable evidence” per Wikipedia.
Adolf Hiter in Hitler: the Rise of Evil (2003)
A docudrama about the German fascist authoritarian leader.
King James I in Gunpowder, Treason & Plot (2004)
A terrible TV miniseries that first tells the story of Mary Queen of Scots, then follows with the story of James. It’s pretty homophobic and the costumes are atrocious.
John MacCormick in Stone of Destiny (2008)
In 1950, Scottish nationalist students removed the ancient Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey and returned it to Scotland.
Ogilvy in The War of the Worlds (2019)
An Edwardian-set adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel, about an alien invasion of Earth.
Fugler in The Performance (2023)
“A gifted Jewish tap dancer is recruited to perform a one-night engagement in 1930’s Berlin. With his life on the line, he and his troupe must give their best performance,” per IMDB.
What’s your favorite of Robert Carlyle’s historical roles?
Ravenous is such an underrated movie; that and Once Upon a Time were my introductions to Robert Carlyle (and while he was pleasantly creepy in both, I always felt he was miscast as a villain on OUaT because he was always too sympathetic in his role, even when he was supposed to be being a straight-up baddie).
How great to celebrate a great Scottish actor the day after St Andrew’s! Like most, I mostly know Mr Carlyle for contemporary shows like Trainspotting and the Full Monty, and my Scottish mum loved Hamish Macbeth. Not quite a Frock appearance, but he had a cameo in ‘Yesterday’ as a version of a 78-year-old John Lennon who never rose to fame and was thus not murdered in 1980,
The little dangly things in the Plunkett & Macleane photo look like cartridges for black powder. These are pre-measured amounts of black powder and a musktet or pistol ball, to facilitate reloading. I’m not an expert on them, but I have a sense that they were mostly in use in the 17th Century, so would have been obsolete by the mid-18th Century setting of P&M.
I’d forgotten he was in Yesterday! Overall I didn’t love it but his scenes made me teary for the sheer what-if scenario of it all.
Must look for “Stone of Destiny.” I love the way Carlyle can play/seem either sleazy or rather elegant.
Nerd alert…. (Sorry, I’m a reenactor, so I know this one!)
That bandolier he’s wearing in Plunkett and Macleane has little flasks full of pre-measured amounts of black powder. Saves time when you need to quickly reload muskets and pistols.
Oddly, my reaction to Mr Carlyle as Hitler is that he’s more of a Goebbels to look at (Must be the rather pinched face and dark eyes).
Also, that he’s a most excellent actor who probably wishes he could get to play the occasional sweetheart (Y’know, just for a change and a special treat).