What a plot

Writer Jimmy McGovern puts his own spin on the tale and Robert Carlyle joins the cast later as James 1. Steve Pratt reports.

FOR actor Robert Carlyle, research is where it all starts, whatever the part. When he appeared in the BBC2 film Safe, about young homeless people on Britain's streets, he went method and slept rough. He didn't have to take such desperate measures to prepare for playing James VI of Scotland, James I of England, in BBC2's Gunpowder, Treason And Plot.

Award-winning writer Jimmy McGovern tells the story behind the Gunpowder Plot with two films exploring the lives of Mary Queen of Scots (played by French newcomer Clemence Poesy) and her son James.

"I spoke to four historians in Scotland and read a couple of books about the period, but the picture just got muddier and muddier," recalls Carlyle.

"There didn't seem to be a particular line and there seemed to be gaps - almost like you go from Elizabeth I straight into Charles II. In the end I felt I couldn't get too bogged down with historical accuracy or inaccuracy because either way could have been right or wrong.

"I'm an actor not an academic. What I do know is Jimmy McGovern and his writing. He's a passionate and honest dramatist who writes from the heart.

"He's read everything he can about the Stuarts and, unlike some Victorian scholars, he doesn't try to clean up history. Jimmy has a remarkable way of getting under the skin of his characters and shows things about them from all different directions.

"No person is 100 per cent bad or 100 per cent good. That's what makes his work so interesting to play and his characters so believable."

Glaswegian Carlyle has worked with McGovern before, on Cracker and Priest. His credits also demonstrate that he's never been typecast, including The Full Monty, Trainspotting, Hamish Macbeth and a Bond villain in The World Is Not Enough.

Now comes James I, and the only consensus of opinion about him is that he was highly intelligent and very unpopular. Carlyle says that when the audience first meets James in the film, it's clear that his detachment from his mother at a really early age has deeply affected him.

"He's been carrying this tremendous pain around for a long, long time. His whole life, in fact. James believes what he's been told - that his mother abandoned him and was a whore. His father, Darnley, was murdered and it's been said his mother had a hand in his death," says the actor.

The only absolute certainty James has is his "God-given right to be king and his right to secure the English throne".

Carlyle feels that James had something about him that put him ahead of everyone else. "He was a deep thinker, and I try to show that this guy's always thinking. My hunch is that not much got past James. But like all of us, he has weaknesses. I give him a dangerous Achilles heel: panic. He panics too quickly and too often."

For 21-year-old French actress Clemence Poesy, playing Mary Queen of Scots was a daunting task. This marks her UK and English-speaking debut, although she has a string of TV and theatre appearances to her credit on the continent.

Her father, a theatre actor and director, provided her first part after she begged him for a role at the age of 14. Her mother, a French teacher, made her continue with her studies until she was 16, before getting an agent and going on to study acting.

Although she's fluent in English, a major role in a foreign language was still a challenge. Learning about Scottish and English history was part of her research. She knew little about Mary before she started filming.

"I read a biography of Mary Stuart to try and learn more about her and her time in history but, since the script and real history aren't always alike, I didn't want to confuse myself by knowing too much about her. In the end, I must follow the scripts," she says.

Playing Mary was living her fantasy as an actress. "I realised that since I was a child I wanted to be an actress just to dress up in big fabrics and corsets, and have adventures riding horses with lots of blood and action. I got all that and more as Mary."

Returning to normal life came as a shock after being treated like royalty. "For two months I'd been a queen with everyone bowing whenever I came into a room. I could get used to that, and I kept expecting my friends and family to be curtseying for me when I got home," she says.

One of the most difficult aspects was the riding. She fell off a horse at the age of seven and never tried riding again, so she was more than a little apprehensive about the riding scenes as Mary.

"I was terrified," she admits. "When I was a child, I never got into the 'little girls love horse-riding' thing," she says.

"In the end, I was all right on set except for the first day when I had a horse that hated me. But they soon found one that didn't. For most of the film I rode side-saddle, so it's not so hard to start and stop."

* Gunpowder Treason And Plot begins on BBC2, Sunday, 9pm

Published: 11/03/2004