Parkinson:
Interview with Robbie Coltrane

Parkinson: Ladies and Gentlemen, Robbie Coltrane!
Robbie Coltrane: Hello.

P: Hello.
RC: How's yourself?

P: I'm very good. So, it's been 6 years since you were last on television?
RC: It's 6 years, yeah.

P: That was the last Cracker, wasn't it?
RC: Last Cracker, yeah. I've been tied up doing films, really.

P: Yeah?
RC: And Harry Potter is almost like having a proper job [laughs]. 'Cause it goes on six months of the year.

P: Yes.
RC: So we had to sort of squeeze that in between the end of Harry Potter and Christmas sort of thing.

P: Are you doing Harry Potter now? Are you in the third one?
RC: Yeah, yeah.

P: Is this the one in which he gets his "loooove" interest?
RC: No, the "loooove" comes in episode 4.

P: Ah, and who is the object of his "loooove"?
RC: It was a giantess. He doesn't meet a lot of girls, of course, because he's 8-feet-6, so...somebody petite, like 7-foot-4, is what he's looking for [laughs]. A dancing partner, you know.

P: Didn't I read in the paper that Hagrid dies in the fourth?
RC: Not the fourth, no, we've read the fourth.

P: In the fifth, in the fifth.
RC: I don't know [sly look].

P: You do, and you're not telling!
RC: [continued sly look] Enigmatic look number 95. [points to face] This is what they pay me for.

P: That's right.
RC: I honestly don't know.

P: Do you enjoy doing that part?
RC: Playing Hagrid?

P: Yes.
RC: Of course, yeah, it's enormous fun. It's enormous fun technically, because it's terribly difficult, you can imagine, trying to make an 8-foot-6 character in relation with real people, getting the angles right. There's all sorts of mathematical things that have to be considered to make the height difference look real.

P: What about the suit itself, because that's monstrous, isn't it?
RC: The suit weighs about 100 pounds, I think. And then there's the hair and the mustache — and then there's me! So...[laughs] it's quite a heavy old load. But the worst thing about it is it's so hot. In the studios, when all the lights are on, of course, all the air cond gets turned off for the sound guys, it's SO hot in there, and the special effects guys have made me this special cool suit, and it's — you know those [indistinct] vests with the holes in it — it's one of those, and snaked through it there's miles and miles of plastic tubing. And there's a little machine at my back, and they press a button and it pumps ice cold water through it and it's just so nice! People always know when it's happening, too, 'cause I'm kind of going "oh, yes!" [laughs] And you know, in the heat, the first thing that happens is your concentration goes, and you start thinking, "Why have I got this big beard on? What am I supposed to be saying?" And then it hits you, and you go [snaps fingers] "Showtime!" It's fantastic, really.

P: of course the other good thing about working on these films I would imagine is this extraordinary cast of actors.
RC: I know, grown-ups.

P: Grown-ups.
RC: In the real sense. Maggie Smith, et cetera.

P: Absolutely, Maggie Smith, Ken Branagh, of course. And what about dear old Richard Harris, of course, who is one of my favorite guys. I used to love Harris.
RC: Yeah.

P: What kind of relationship did you have with him? Did you enjoy him?
RC: Well, he used to keep his caravan open, open doors. You could just wander in and out. He's full of great old tales, he had a wonderful life, he really did. 'Cause he was a Kerry man, wasn't he?
O'Hanlon: [another guest, actor/comedian Ardal O'Hanlon] Limerick.
RC: Limerick! Blimey, I'll get in trouble for saying that. But the man was a poet, he really was. He used to read poetry and write poetry the whole time. And like all those really rebellious guys, he had a heart of gold. The children absolutely loved him. And he was telling me about in the 60's, the early 60's, there was an awful lot of American money came in from Hollywood, and made MGM and Boreham Wood and all that, and they had carte blanche these buggers. [On a drinking binge] till about four in the morning, and then 6 o'clock in the morning they'd roll in and phone the studio and say, "We're all completely [drunk]. We won't be in tomorrow, but we'll be in the day after tomorrow." Just think, can you imagine doing that now? Can you imagine Tom Cruise doing that? Can you imagine Tom Cruise doing that? It just wouldn’t happen, would it?

P: [laughing] You know, if you could have a wish, would you like to be a part of that era? Because your heroes are — Harris would be one, Brando would be another one. What about the days when John Ford used to make movies, and Cecil B. DeMille? I mean, I'd love to be a part of that.
RC: John Ford, you know I read a great book, there was a bit about John Ford. When he finished a movie, he had a three-master anchored off Catalina Island. And he and selected members of the cast and crew would get on it with a mariachi band and about 40 bottles of whiskey and sail down to Mexico.

P: [laughing] That's stylish.
RC: And he had a crate of whiskey that he took with him and a mariachi band, who played, just followed them around playing, and then they went to visit a few [indistinct] houses, and when the whiskey ran out, he decided that was time to go back to Hollywood, then he went back to Hollywood and made another film.

P: Yes, there's something very enviable about—
RC: Absolutely, because they were cowboys, you know, they were pioneers in the business, really.

P: Yes.
RC: Before the six took over, [indistinct]

P: That's right. I asked the others this question, did you — did you — want to be famous? Did you have this ambition to be famous when you were younger? Like Ann did [referring to another guest, game-show host Ann Robinson]?
RC: I can't say I ever did, no, not famous. I wanted to be successful, everybody wants to be successful. I wanted to be offered interesting work, and they don't offer you interesting work if they don't know who you are. So, being famous is kind-of something that happens to you when you're successful in a show-off business, you know. It's inevitable.

P: Going back to that number we were talking about, with Richard Harris. He was what they call a "hell-raiser"
RC: Yes, he was.

P: And you as well, [indistinct]
RC: I used to get about a bit, yeah. Young man, suddenly had a few bob in my pocket, yeah. Yeah, of course. [pause]. That was a short one, wasn’t it? [laughs].

P: I'm just nodding and saying "yes".
RC: You want the names? I'm a parent now, I can't be a hell-raiser. It'd be quite inappropriate to wander in and—

P: Well I, was only thinking because there's a link between you and Ann in this. I mean, at one point in your careers, both of you at one point were so falling — well, I don't know about falling-down drunk, but you certainly were spectacular.
RC: I have stumbled from time to time.

P: You have stumbled from time to time.
RC: [dramatically] Stumbled, but never fallen!

P: [to Ann Robinson] And yours is the most extraordinary story, because you sit here now looking like you do, being who you are, and not too long ago you were a falling-down alcoholic divorcee.
Robinson: Well, that was 25 years ago, but I...[laughing]

P: Well, I mean, but nonetheless, it's a spectacular reversal of fortune. When you were lying there, literally [indistinct] in the gutter looking up, you can't ever have imagined that today you'd be actually where you are now.
Robinson: Well I think there is sort-of something about it though that perhaps when you do get up, and it's been that rough, that you make an extra effort.
RC: But I mean that's a great role-model and encouragement for anyone who's hit the bottom of their life, as it were, isn't it?
Robinson: Yeah, yeah, it's always hard, but—
RC: That you can drag your self up and [singing] "start all over again." I feel a really tacky musical coming on [laughing].

P: And how bad did it get with you, I mean was it really, really bad or what?
RC: Well you know what it's like in our business. You work very, very intensely for two or three months on a show and then suddenly you've got nothing to do and a wad of cash, so "Will I go down to the library, or will I go to a nightclub? Hmmmm." And you've got the fare to go to New York to go to a nightclub, so what are you gonna do when you're young? I mean, it's fair enough.

P: We talked last time when you were on the show about you directing, and you've produced now, so is directing the next thing?
RC: I've produced. Directing's the next thing, I just have to persuade somebody to give me 6 million pounds and let me have at it.
Robinson: That's what producers do, though, isn't it? They go around raising money?
RC: Well yeah, but the trouble is you can't be the producer and the director. Although that would be lovely. "Robin, can I have 6 million pounds?" "Certainly, Robin!"

P: Your great hero Orson Welles used to do that.
RC: Yeah, he did. Well, no, but Orson used to make a wad of cash when he made movies. He made like a half a million dollars in a week. And then go plow it into a low budget film in Europe. Kind of like Branagh does that, too.

P: Yes. Yes, OK. Robbie Coltrane, thank you very much indeed.
RC: My pleasure, my pleasure.

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