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Daily Record
Entertainment
Nicola Croal

Inside Robert Carlyle's life from tough Glasgow upbringing to Hollywood success

Robert Carlyle is returning to screens to star in a brand new reboot of The Full Monty which will be released on Disney Plus at the end of the month. .

The Scots star, who starred in the original smash hit British comedy as stripper Gaz Schofield, is returning as the same character in the new eight-part series, 25 years later.

The hit film tells the story of a group of six unemployed men in Sheffield who are struggling to make ends meet and decide to put on a strip show at a men's club to keep themselves afloat.

Two and a half decades later, Carlyle and a handful of his other original cast members are returning to continue their story in Sheffield but the now 62-year-old has revealed he wont be "getting my kit off again" this time.

In the original 1997 film, Carlyle stars as Gaz, the ringleader of the group and the dreamer who is desperate to earn enough money to look after his son properly.

The actor himself grew up in poverty in the east end of Glasgow with his single father, who struggled to keep them afloat, and he has previously spoken of how he can personally relate to the role.

He now lives a very different lifestyle as one of the most successful Scottish names in Hollywood with his beloved wife and kids but the Maryhill born star has never forgotten where he came from.

Here we take a closer look at the Trainspotting celeb's rough upbringing in Glasgow, the early beginnings of his career and his family life.

Marriage

Robert Carlyle has been married to his American born wife Anastasia Shirley since 1997 after the couple tied the knot at a gorgeous Highland castle in Scotland.

Robert and Anastasia have been married since 1997 (MAX NASH/AFP/Getty Images)

Carlyle first met makeup artist Anastasia on set whilst he was playing Liverpool psychopath Albi in the ITV series Cracker alongside the late fellow Scots star Robbie Coltrane.

They were later wed at Skibo castle near Dornoch in Sutherland with a unique midnight ceremony and only 30 of their closest friends and family as their guests.

The couple went on to have three children, Ava, 21 Harvey, 19 and Pearce, 17 and the family now reside in Vancouver in Canada.

Speaking of his wife in a Telegraph interview in 2015, Robert gushed: "Even as a little boy, if I could have hand-picked the perfect woman to accompany me in this world and in this life, it would have been Anastasia, and that’s as true today as it has ever been.

"She is just the best, and I love her to bits".

Career

Carlyle's acting career began when he was just 21. Having been inspired by Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the keen star performed in productions at Glasgow Arts Centre.

Full Monty LEFT TO RIGHT: Steve Huison, Robert Carlyle, Paul Barber and Mark Addy. Robert Carlyle in a scene from the blockbuster film 'The Full Monty'. The low budget comedy about six unemployed steel workers who resort to stripping to make a living has become the biggest grossing British film of all time having taken a record 32 million at the box office to date. See PA story SHOWBIZ Cinema. (PA)

He went on to study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and launched his very own theatre company called Raindog in 1991 with four other friends once they had graduated.

In that same year, Carlyle landed his first television acting role on The Bill and his first film in Ken Loach's movie, Riff-Raff.

He later starred in dozens of other motion pictures with some of his most notable work being in Priest (1994), Trainspotting (1996) and The Full Monty (1997).

The Maryhill born actor has also taken on some villain roles in the past and was cast as Adolf Hitler in the TV series Hitler: The Rise of Evil in 2003, which he admitted was a character he found "very difficult" to play.

The star spent five months filming in the Czech Republic and said that taking on the character of the ruthless Nazi leader really took its toll on him.

Speaking of his most mentally challenging role yet, he told the Daily Mail: "Being in that mindset for so long was really tough. A lot of things were upsetting.

"All this disgusting stuff was coming out of this b******’s mouth, and I didn’t realise that my make-up artist was Jewish.

"I suddenly felt guilty, which was ridiculous. I’m not that guy! But it hurt me. It took a good few months to get over it.’

The star even agreed to stay in the same hotel room as Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun once did in 1938 and said he feels haunted by a "spooky" feeling he got when he entered the room.

However, arguably some of his best work is in the Full Monty, which led to the then 32-year-old winning a Bafta in 1998 for his performance.

The new Full Monty reboot series is due to be released on Disney Plus next week (Ben Blackall/Disney+)

Despite the success of the film, the actor previously claimed on the Graham Norton Show that during filming, he thought the movie was 'crap'.

He explained that Peter Cattaneo directed it but he would insist to shoot everything multiple times, which Carlyle described as 'torture', and revealed he even tried to leave halfway through filming because he was so fed up.

Robert said that things turned around once producer Uberto Pasolin and editor, Nick Moore, pulled the film together which saw it "from going in the bin to making hundreds of millions".

Some of his more recent work includes T2 Trainspotting (2017) where he returned as the famous hard man Francis Begbie and the reboot series of the Full Monty which is set to be released on Disney Plus on June 24.

Upbringing

Robert had a difficult start in life and was raised by his single father in poverty after his mother left them when he was aged just three.

Robert had a rough upbringing in Glasgow where he was raised by his single father Joseph (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images))

The star, who is originally from Maryhill, spent the first seven years of his life living in the east end of Glasgow where he described his father, Joseph Carlyle, as "poorer than poor".

He recalled how he and his dad used to rummage through dustbins trying to find thrown away tea packets that had stamps for a box of groceries on their packaging so they could eat.

Joseph, who was a painter and decorator before his wife Elizabeth left him, also used to desperately sift through skips as he looked for something to sell on and the pair often survived through stealing things.

Carlyle previously explained that his father was unable to get a job after his marriage fell apart as there was no-one there to look after him when he was a young boy and all of Joseph's relatives had "rejected" him.

The star described it as "me and my dad against the world" as he spoke of how he and father would have to move around to escape social security type institutions from taking Robert away.

The pair eventually moved to the plusher west end of Glasgow as the east had a violent atmosphere and Robert recalls seeing "vicious and ferocious gangs squaring up to each other" on the street.

Speaking of how their lives began to turn around, he explained that a Nigerian man that they knew of called Mr Macooloo had to return to Nigeria and left behind his Victorian townhouse.

Robert and his father moved into the property and made friends with the other residents that lived there, which was the beginning of a new life for the Carlyle family.

The Trainspotting star left school without any qualifications at the age of 16 to become a painter and decorator like his father but took a secret liking for acting and started taking classes, which Joseph fully supported him with.

Joseph sadly passed away in 2006 and Robert has spoken of how much he respects his father for how much he gave up for him.

In a previous interview with the Daily Record he spoke of how his role as Gaz in the Full Monty as a single parent who was struggling to make ends meet for his young son really hit home for him.

Robert said: "What struck me was I was 32 when the Monty came up, I think my father was round about the same age when his marriage started to fall apart and he had me and I suppose then was my first real indication to me of how much my father loved me.

"He'd have done anything for me, he'd have killed for me, but I suddenly began to get it. And of course Gaz in The Full Monty would do anything for his boy, he eventually takes his clothes off in public."

Despite his hard start in life, Robert still speaks very fondly of Glasgow as he told the Telegraph: “It’s the city that I return to in my head all the time, never really left there.”

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