It is the job of the actor to convince you that whatever he or she is doing is believable, no matter how awkward, painful, or fantastic that might be. This task is much more difficult than it appears, but the mark of a good actor is to make it look so simple and easy that often people don't believe they're acting at all. When it all comes together on the screen or on the stage, what's created is a moment that will forever remain in the audience's memory.

Anyone who's ever seen a Bob Hoskins film already knows he is a master of this moment. Take, for example, his pivotal scene in Mona Lisa, when he's standing on the pier wearing those silly little star shaped sunglasses while the woman he loves, Cathy Tyson, rips his heart out. His pain literally wafts off the screen and takes up a swelling residence in your throat. Not convinced? Consider then the flipside of that in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when we never stop to consider the fact that the rabbit who's pestering him to death is not flesh and blood. Hoskins made their interactions so believable that he almost added a third dimension to a co-star with only two. If you're extremely lucky, some day you may get to view Dennis Potter's original BBC miniseries "Pennies From Heaven" where Hoskins' richly dark performance as a Depression Era sheet music salesman gives new meaning to the word sublime.

Born in the middle of WWII, Bob Hoskins survived the Nazi Blitz and settled with his family in Finsbury Park, an economically depressed area of North London. Leaving school at age fifteen, he followed his father's footsteps and studied accounting until a sudden realization made him quit. After knocking about for awhile in different jobs he fell, quite by accident, into an acting gig and discovered a home on the stage. In 1977 he won the hearts of critics and audiences with his breakthrough role in the aforementioned "Pennies From Heaven." For his role as Arthur, a man whose search for sexual gratification, love and understanding leads him on a ragged path to the gallows, Hoskins was nominated for a best actor BAFTA award. Three years later Britain's secret treasure became an international star after his remarkable potrayal of a Cockney crime lord in John MacKenzie's The Long Good Friday. He followed up that tough guy role with a turn as a tender-hearted felon with extremely bad taste in women in Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa. For his efforts Hoskins was rewarded with Best Actor awards by The New York Critic's Circle, The Cannes Film Festival, The Golden Globes and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1986.

Hoskins became a household name the world over when he took on the case of a cartoon bunny in Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Once again the Golden Globes recognized the difficult made to look easy and nominated him for Best Performance in a Comedy/Musical in 1989. But at the same time he was delighting the vox populi with Roger Rabbit, he was amazing the writ critici with A Prayer For the Dying, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne and The Raggedy Rawney which he also wrote and directed. Since then he has alternately dazzled and tickled in a slew of films including Heart Condition, Shattered, Hook, Super Mario Brothers, Shattered, Nixon, The Secret Agent, Michael, and Spice World...Spice World?—proving, if anything, Bob Hoskins has a sense of humor, especially about himself.

Although the world explored in Hoskins' latest work may not feature anybody named Baby or Sporty, it is every bit as legitimately British if not as well publicized. There is nothing slick or overtly sexy in Shane Meadows gritty feature debut TwentyFourSeven, but if you let that stop you from seeing it, then the loss is your own. Once again Hoskins delivers in a multilayered role that'll have both critics and audiences singing his praises. Hoskins plays Alan Darcy, a rough hewn dreamer in a depressed English tenement tract who dares to believe he can make a difference. By revitalizing an old boxing club and uniting warring factions of teens to participate, Darcy sows the seeds of spirit and pride into a community with a desperately short supply. But as Darcy spars with the powers that be to keep alive the hopes of a town's youth, he finds himself kayoed by his own inability to make a connection with the woman he secretly loves.

As Alan Darcy, once again Bob Hoskins makes the vital actor/audience connection through the realization that the way to our hearts is through his own. We share his joys and suffer his pains willingly because, like the disaffected youth of TwentyFourSeven's slums, we are looking for something, someone to believe in whether we know it or not.

I used to tell people the definition of good acting was your scene on the pier in Mona Lisa where your heart is breaking. We can't see your eyes because you're wearing those little star shaped sunglasses, yet it's still obvious that your heart is breaking. Of course that was before I saw you in "Pennies From Heaven," which I have on tape so I can watch it over and over.

Jesus, you've got it on tape? The only person I've ever known which had it on tape is Liza Minnelli. You're one of the few so hang on to it. I'll have to come around to your house and watch it one night. (laughs)

There's a lot of stuff in bios of you that sounds unbelievable. There's a claim you were actually born during an air raid.

No. What happened was when there was a threat of the air raids [in London], they sent my pregnant mother to Bury St. Edmunds. When I was two weeks old the bombs were at their height and they sent her back again. So I spent the first three years of my life under a kitchen table. When I was a kid, my playground was a bomb site, a big hole in the ground that was full of bricks. There were no slides or swings, but it was good for what we knew.

You must really have a feeling for children growing up in places like Sarajevo.

Or like Nottingham, or Chicago, or L.A. All fuckin' project houses, that's what it's about.

You also studied to be an accountant?

Yeah for three years. I think it was the typing pool that kept me going. I remember it was one Monday morning and all these certificates came through in the post saying I was halfway there. I thought, "Fuck! I'm halfway to being all the people that I hate!" So I went up and said "Here, (pantomimes returning the certificates) you paid for these, you can fuckin' have them!" and then left.

What did your parents think when you did that?

Well my dad was working in the same firm and three months later he left! (laughs) "Fuck you! My son was right, you're shit!"

Another amazing fact is that you used to be a fire eater?

Well I was an actor. I'd been doing Shakespeare and the rest of it and a friend of mine had this circus. He said, "You fancy doing a season in the circus?" I'd been doing Richard III and King Lear and all that..."Fuckin' right! I'll have some circus!" So I learned to be a fire eater, ringmaster, clown, all of that.

The last unbelievable sounding fact was how you got started in the acting business. You were in a pub and...

What happened was a friend of mine was into amateur dramatics. We were going to go to a party, but he wanted to do this audition before we went, so I went along with him to this little theatre and waited for him in the bar. I was waiting for him a long time, sitting in the bar giving it this (motions raising a pint) and they came down and said, "You're next." So I'd had enough of that and went "Right!" I went upstairs, read the part and they gave the lead in the play! It was "The Feather Pluckers" by John Peter Jones. The first night we did it, Sarah Randall, the agent, came to see it. She said, "Listen, you've got to take this up professionally." So I said, "Get me a job and I will." Within a week I got three auditions to repertory theatres. There are three repertory theatres around England, and I got all three of them. And I was suddenly a professional actor. That was it, I was doing it.

If you hadn't been in that bar, what do you think you'd be doing now?

Probably robbing banks. (laughs) Either that or probably writing. Probably both.

What was your biggest influence when you first started acting?

Well I was suddenly a professional actor and I thought, "Shit! I better learn how to do this," because I loved it. I thought it was great and I loved the people. Suddenly I was in a community where I wasn't a freak. I was in a community that had room for everybody - the crazier you was, the better - all these lunatics. "This is home! I'm there!" Then I thought, "Shit! How the fuck am I going to do this?" So I started talking to other actors and people said, "You've got to take elocution lessons, and deportment classes. You've got to learn to fence..." I said, "What the fuck? I've got to learn to walk like I don't, talk like I don't, be like I'm not, where the fuck am I in the middle of all this! I need this shit? No!" So I started looking around and then it struck me. Drama is about private moments. Like what you were talking about, that moment on Mona Lisa with the glasses. That's what drama's about. That's what people want shown. That's what you pay for. So I started to watch women. Women--because they've had to keep their mouths shut for thousands of years—express themselves emotionally. Guys, you don't get fuck-all out of them. They can't show you anything. They'll show you, "Right, I should be angry, so I'm going to be angry. I'll smash a chair. I'll show you how fuckin' angry I can get!" But this is bullshit.

Is that true only for England, or all over the world?

All over the world. Let's face it, you walk in and there's a girl got a champagne dinner for you - you know what I mean - big smile on her face, but she's pissed and you know. (laughs) You walk in there, "Oh shit! What have I done?" But a guy, three weeks later you say, "What the fuck's wrong with you?" "Well..." "Well why didn't you tell me? Give me some sort of sign?" That was my influence, watching women.

So you turned girl watching into training for the dramatic arts?

Yeah. I'm not stalking, I'm learning. (laughs)

The method from the Bob Hoskins school of acting.

Stalk! (laughs) You can't imagine what a pain it was for me when Madonna was being stalked. What was his name? Bob Hoskins! God, did I get burned for that one!

What was it like making the transition from stage to screen?

Well the first thing I learned was - on the stage you've got to learn to strut. You've got to push it to the back row. When I went in front of the camera - for one thing there's no back row. I'm going to strut through a little hole? What the fuck is this! So I went up to the cameraman and said, "Here, you come around and let me have a look at you. What happens if you change this lens? What do you do with this? And if that light's different... Ah." In front of the camera you don't strut, you slink. You ain't going to push it through the back row because there's nobody there. There's only one guy looking at you. So instead of you going to him, you've got to get him to come to you.

Is that the same for movies and television?

No, studio television is like - if you're working five cameras at the same time - they're moving these cameras around - you've can really play the studio. You're working on this camera here, you're aware of the guy up there - television is good because you can control it. There's a bit coming up here and I want a close-up right there, so I'm going to turn my fuckin' back on you mate. They ain't gonna' show your ass. There you go. I'm playin' straight to the man! And the director's going, "He's showing his ass! What the fuck is this?"

Did you really do that?

(grins) Yeah.

That's hilarious. So what would you say is the most important thing about acting for you?

The fun. The pure fun. I love it, and I love the people. The biggest reward of doing it is working with talent. When you're really going it's jazz, it's pure fuckin' jazz. Say you're working with Helen Mirren, or Maggie Smith or Tony Hopkins, you're throwing things out (snaps his fingers) "Bang! Get on with this! It's a ball game, baby!" And sometimes you'll throw it there and they'll wrap it up in pure velvet and just toss it back at you, "Take that." That is wonderful when you do that. That can happen on stage, or in front of a camera. When there's that little extra thing, when you're "yeah, let's do this," and it's gone beyond. It's got nothing to do with improvising words or anything like that. It's just nuances, little things. You're playing with subtleties, like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

The other side of that coin is what's the worst thing about acting? What do you hate?

When there's a bully as a director. When the director starts throwing his weight around I don't like that.

Do you feel that's because they don't know what they're doing, or because they're insecure?

I don't give a fuck. They're just making people uncomfortable, and they can't be doing that.

I can't imagine anybody tries to bully you.

Well they don't give me shit. No. I work with Sammy [Pasha, who plays the referee in TwentyfourSeven]. Sammy's my stand-in and driver and sort of amanuensis. Sammy gets in the company and spreads the rumor, "Be careful of Bob because he hits directors." (laughs)

I doubt you had any such problems on Twentyfour-Seven. After all Shane Meadows is such a fan of yours that he supposedly wrote this part with you in mind.

Let me explain what happened. Shane had no education, he left school at fifteen and he's had no cinematic training at all. He just took a video on the streets and filming in his project housing with his friends. He just made movies, about 30 of them, and some of them are winning prizes in festivals. Steve Woolley, the producer, sent me one of these tapes, Where's The Money Ronnie, and said "What do you think of this?" "Fuck man, this is amazing! It was made on the streets in Nottingham with his mates? This is extraordinary. This kid should be encouraged, he should be developed." He said, "Well, we're going to back him for a feature film. The thing is, he's written it for you." I thought, "Aw shit, I walked right into that one! (laughs) Fuck, what am I, stupid! Here we go. There's a producer working a weeze here!" And then he sent me the script and I was amazed. This kid, from where he's from - that housing estate is where he's coming from and those friends of his, that's them. What you see on the screen is them. I thought, "Jesus, for a kid of his age and his background to have that much compassion and that much insight, and that much poetry, that's extraordinary. Then I met him. He walked in and he was box shaped, five foot six with a shaved head. I thought, "There's my boy!"

Did being kindred spirits translate into the filmmaking process?

Oh yeah. I was brought up in a bomb site after the war. The only thing was we come out of the Second World War with Adolf Hitler, and we won. We had fuck-all but we won, we had hope. They come out of Thatcherism and they lost. So what the fuck have they got? And they've got drugs, and they've got AIDS. I knew where that was coming from. But when I went out there I was terrified, absolutely terrified. I thought, "These kids are going to see me as this really ridiculous old fart." Anyhow, I got up there and they weren't impressed. They were unimpressed that I was impressed. They didn't give a fuck. They didn't expect me to lead, and they didn't ask me to follow.

That must have been nice.

Are you kidding? It was wonderful! I thought, "With my age, I suddenly realize I've still got 'street cred,' and I could still run with a gang!" I was away! I thought it was wonderful! With these kids there was no fancy footwork, or clever acting or any of that bollox. It was like, "If it ain't coming from me then no one's listening to it." That was it. The point was it was a situation where anything could happen. I don't know. For me, it was the most important thing I've ever done. About the quality of it, I can't tell you. I'm too close to it. I know what I think it's about. I know what I get out of it, but I don't know what you get out of it.

What do you get out of it?

What attracted me to the piece is that it is a brilliant study in male loneliness. It's like, this guy [Darcy], he's got "street cred," he's got respect from the guys, he's a tough guy, but he's a social cripple. He's a guy who would make a really good husband, and a brilliant father. Imagine having Darcy as your father? Fuck yeah! But he hasn't got the ability to make himself attractive to a woman, or else he hasn't got the confidence. We've all got that shit.

Like having to walk all the way across a room to ask a girl to dance? What if she says no?

Yeah! "She's going to cut my cock off and say 'Fuck you!'" All this myth about tough guys walk in the room and the women go "Yeah!" That's bullshit! Bullshit! Tough guy walks into a room and they go, "Who is this Moe?" and he knows it too. That's what I wanted to show. Guys are totally fucked. We're crippled because of that.

The scene where he's in the store and rests his hand on the girl's handprint on the counter after she's gone, that spoke volumes. Was that written or was that ad-libbed?

I saw that. I saw it in Westwood. There's a little pharmacy with a newsstand outside. The guy with the newsstand, he's got this whole language problem, but he's obviously taken with the lady inside, the lady who runs the pharmacy. I was staying at the Westwood Marquis. The Westwood Marquis is like my home - they've known me for years and put up with my shit. I've been in there a thousand times and seen this guy and her and they'd chat. He was standing there - I was getting some toothpaste or something - and she walked out and there was her handprint, and he put his hand on it and I was fuckin' devastated! As soon as I told Shane he said, "We're having that!"

That was one of those true film moments, like the Mona Lisa sunglasses, where you just go, "wow!"

Yeah. "I've been there."

I think that's what we love most about Darcy, the contradictions. For a tough guy, there was such a tenderness to him, like the way he cared for his aunt, taking her dancing.

She was his only friend. He loved the guys, he loved the neighborhood, but the point is the film is about control. It's about self-control. It's about taking control of your life. He tries to teach them the discipline of boxing to be able to get some pride back. He's come from the same place. He's a part of that community and he does understand the warrior class. If you take everything away from someone, and they've got nothing to feel proud of - they can't feel respect for themselves, they can't do anything, they can't achieve anything that they can feel proud of - if they can't be proud of creation, they'll be proud of destruction. That is how you create a warrior class.

In the larger scheme of things, what do you hope this film does?

To tell you the truth mate, I don't know. Okay, we can talk about box-office, we can talk about earning money, but if there's a guy out there that that somewhere in that film goes, "Yeah, I've been there!" if it can do that, then that's what I want. If it earns money it earns money, if it don't, it don't. But if there's a fellow out there and it saves his life, then that's what I've done. If I've done nothing else I've saved his life.

Warning! Spoiler Alert! For people who haven't seen the movie and don't want to know anything about it yet, I suggest they skip over the next four responses, but I have to ask you about that death scene.

I think people are going to talk about it anyway and it's not going to give the plot away. It's not a mystery where you think "Oh fuck, that's what it's about!" It ain't The Usual Suspects.

So you're Keyser Soze!

(laughs)

No, what I wanted to ask you about was acting technique in that death scene. You're there, your face is expressionless but there's a glimmer of life and light in your eyes, then without changing expression, without moving a muscle, that light of life is gone like you turned off a switch from the inside. How the hell do you do that?

You die. You die. Okay, your heart keeps beating, but you're laying there and you just die. Listen, I haven't got any technique. I've never had a lesson in me life. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. All I know is you die. If it works, it works, if it don't, it don't.

No million dollar computer gimmicks. No optical or lighting effects. You just died. It was one of the eeriest moments I've seen on film.

Well great. It worked.

Maybe you should open an acting school.

(laughs) I had a director once, a Russian director and he gave me a note. It said, (thick Russian accent) "Bob, get better!" (laughs) I thought, "Fine."

Perhaps you should send him a few recent clips.

(laughs)

How were you as an actor when you started out? Do you think you're better now?

I don't know how good I was. Being a success and all of that didn't worry me. I just wanted to do it. When you're fucking someone, do you really care about your technique? Like I said, I just learned to act by watching birds, by watching women.

Are you a boxing fan?

Me, as far as sports are concerned, you turn on a sport and I go to sleep straight-away. In my family, when it's the football, the soccer, the cup finals, my wife and daughter are fuckin' lunatics, screaming and carrying on, and me and my son Jack, we go upstairs and watch cartoons.

So what does Bob Hoskins do for fun?

Cook. I love cooking. Funny enough, I'm a real domestic, a real home bird. I even like cleaning up. I do a bit of photography. I bought all this equipment, for art, I've just got thousands of pictures of my kids! (laughs) They've got the most expensive cameras around them and they're just snaps.

Where does that domestic side of you come from?

My wife. She trained me. She said, "Listen, let's get some agreement here. I ain't doing all of this on my own. It's a big fuckin' house here!" (laughs)

So Bob Hoskins vacuums?

Absolutely! (laughs)

You've done a lot of films with Michael Caine. Is he a mate of yours?

Yeah. The first time I ever met Michael was in Mexico. We were in a little piss-hole of a place called Vera Cruz. He turned up and said, (Michael Caine impersonation) "Ah, Bob Hoskins! Come here! I want to talk to you! Listen, you've got a lot of talent and you're going to earn a lot of money! And there's things you do with your money, and there's things you don't do with your money. And the first thing you don't do with your money is buy a fuckin' boat! Right!" And I said, (snaps to) "Yes sir! Sorry! Sorry!" And everytime I see him I say, "I haven't bought a boat! I've never been near a boat!" (laughs)

What other friendships have you made in the business?

Well the best friend I ever made was Fred Gwynne. Oh man, he was one of the funniest men I've ever known in my life and I fuckin' loved that man!

Because he did that show, "The Munsters," I don't think most people ever realized just how talented an actor he was.

Oh man, he was brilliant! You know The Cotton Club? You know that watch scene, where he says' "Give me your watch and he smashes it up. That was total ad lib. It's in one shot. Francis [Ford Coppola] came up and said, "Fuck, I don't know what I'm going to do!" Francis didn't have a script, he had fuck-all. He was conning all these people because they were trying to get rid of him. "Oh, I've got the script in a safe." He didn't have one. It was bullshit. When he came down he said, "Frenchie comes back, we're supposed to be doing that after lunch. What can I do?" So Fred says (Fred Gwynne impersonation), "Get a watch. A pocket watch." And he said, "Okay." Imagine me and Fred together. He was seven foot tall and slim. We looked like a fuckin' bat and ball together! And I went to the prop man and said, "You got a watch?" He says, (Queens accent) "Yeah. This is a Louis the Fourteenth. It's got three hundred jewels in it. It's fuckin' beautiful. It's a real antique." So I thought, "Oh bloody!" I know what the fuck he's [Fred's] got in his head. But I said, "Yeah. Thanks." So Francis says, "I don't - " and Fred says, "Don't worry about this little shit, just follow me, follow me." So in he comes, after Francis gets set up and, bang, it's all in one shot. I'm across from him and just following thinking, "Fuck it, I don't know what I'm doing," and Fred says, "Give me the watch." I give him the watch and Fred goes (motions and makes smashing noises). You could have knocked the prop man down with a light bulb! It's a fuckin' antique! (laughs) So he smashes the fuckin' watch up and Francis goes, "Right! Cut! That's it, over to the other scene!" Somebody says, "Francis you want to - " "Aw fuck it! That was great! Somebody get the prop man up."

How did Francis Ford Coppola get you onboard The Cotton Club if he didn't have a script?

No we had an original script, but Francis didn't want to do that. Francis wrote it, but he wrote it for them [the studio] and they said "This is a great script! We'll do that, and Francis said, "I'm not doing that shit! Fuck it! I know what I'm doing!" It's Francis, you know...

Let's talk about your own directorial debut, The Raggedy Rawney.

I got inflicted with that one. I was in Australia with Bob Weis, the producer, and we were just talking about projects. The Raggedy Rawney is an old Gypsy legend and I told it to him. He goes, "Great! You write it, you direct it, and we're doing it in Czechoslovakia!" I thought, "Right. What the fuck have I walked into?" I was doing Mona Lisa with Handmade Films and they said, "What's that script you're writing?" I said, "I'm just writing a script." They said, "Let's have a look at it." I said, "But this guy's producing..." "Who gives a fuck, let's have a look at it." So anyway they said, "We're doing it," and suddenly Handmade's doing it. Anyway I did Roger Rabbit and I'm literally hallucinating. I've lost total control. I've got weasels coming out of the walls and Handmade said, "Great, you've got a break in the middle of Roger Rabbit. (claps) We're doing it!

How long was the break?

Six months. Maggie Smith says, "I'm doing The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. You're doing it ain't ya?" (nods with glazed eyes) "Yeah! Yeah! Weasels everywhere, I'm coming!" So I went out to Ireland to do Judith with Maggie and I've got to set this fuckin' film up. So I'm on the phone from Ireland, setting this film up, and then we go to Czechoslovakia and - can't you imagine, I'm directing this movie with weasels still coming out of the walls! So okay, we're in Czechoslovakia, and it's the most lunatic place in the world. And there's this Czechoslovakian fellow in the corner - they called him "Spot Check" because he was covered in spots - and I'm thinking, what the fuck is he following me around for because everytime I go near him he runs away! Who is he? And the Czechs go, "He's your assistant." "Well what the fuck is he doing!" I had to put him in the film to make him earn some money.

Somebody probably spread a rumor that Bob Hoskins liked to kill assistants.

(laughs) So that's how The Raggedy Rawney got made - with weasels coming out of the walls.

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