Bob Hoskins is the exception to the norm; a character actor who plays the leading man. No, not the roles that Mel, Tom and Kevin do. At 47, he has a physique that critics have likened to everything from “a friendly pit bull” to a “fireplug with eyebrows,” and a cockney accent that supports his common-man roots. Nonetheless, the London-bred Hoskins is the kind of actor directors call upon when they need someone decidedly uncommon.

After toiling for a decade on the British stage – in everything from Richard III to Guys and Dolls – Hoskins was first spotted by keen-eyed Yankees in 1979’s Pennies from Heaven, a BBC miniseries that ran on PBS. One year later he broke through internationally with his highly acclaimed portrayal of a brutal gangster from London’s East End in the film The Long Good Friday. Dubbed the “Cockney Cagney,” Hoskins suddenly became the hottest British subject this side of the royal family. Good performances in misguided movies such as Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club, the miniseries Mussolini: The Decline and Fall of Il Duce and Alan Alda’s Sweet Liberty followed before his second breakthrough in 1986 in Mona Lisa. Playing a small time-hood obsessed with a call girl, he won the British Oscar and the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival. And when the Best Actor nominees were read at 1987’s Oscar telecast, Hoskins beamed as his name was called – it was a look that said he was thrilled to be there even if it should turn out he didn’t win. He didn’t, of course; that honor went to Paul Newman. “Paul Newman’s wonderful – ‘e deserved it!” Hoskins says in his typically self-effacing manner.

The 1988 summer blockbuster, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, provided Hoskins with his third and – as far as reaching an audience goes – his greatest breakthrough; This working-class actor was finally in a movie seen by the working-class masses. Through it all, the actor has remained remarkably unchanged by his star status. After a first marriage (which produced two children) ended in a traumatic divorce, he married former schoolteacher Linda Banwell in 1982. The couple live with their own two youngsters in a middle-class London neighborhood. And though Hoskins lives unpretentiously, he admits that he enjoys his celebrity. “There’s a lot to be said for being rich and famous,” he avows with a boisterous laugh – a laugh that, along with tongue-in-cheek observations and a gift for spinning anecdotes, is also typical of Hoskins.

This month, he stars alongside Denzel Washington in Heart Condition, a quirk buddy movie about love, second chance and racism. The interview took place shortly before the end of 1989 on the Boston set of Mermaids, a dramatic comedy directed by Richard Benjamin and starring Hoskins, Cher and Winona Ryder. Says Benjamin of his leading man "You know what makes Bob such a great actor? You can't catch him acting. That's really it."

Heart Condition is an unusual movie for you - what attracted you to it?

First of all, I thought it was a great script.... I flew into Los Angeles to meet everybody and I met Denzel. And we got on well together. You know, you could see that there'd be a good creative relationship there. And a man suffering from a transplanted heart - who's just had a heart attack - and a ghost are the weakest cavalry that's ever been, you know what I mean [laughs]? That's what attracted me. I usually find that hutch men are at their best when they're at their weakest.

That's a theme that runs through a lot of the characters you've played.

Yeah, well, I've learnt most of my trade from women, you know what I mean? Because women can express far more vulnerability and are far more . . . women can make you know what they're thinking or what they're feeling very quickly. Men can't. And to be an actor, that's what you've got to do. So I suppose a real hero is the guy who's the most vulnerable, you know? . . .And I love working with women. I love working with Cher. We sort of clicked very well together right off. And with Winona and little Chrissie [Christina Ricci, who's also costarring in Mermaids]. We're a good team, we are. I feel like the fourth girl, you know [laughs]?

You're playing another American in Heart Condition. From an actor's point of view, is there some way in which American men are different from English men?

Yeah, Americans in general are much more demonstrative about their feelings, about every-thing. Americans are much more enthusiastic; they're not worried about their dignity, which I quite like.

Your last film, Roger Rabbit, was one of the biggest movies in history. Did you see that coming?

Yeah, yeah. It's never been done before, the way we did it. And we kind of knew it was either going to get forgotten or it was gonna be a biggie.

Did you get to enjoy the afterglow of its success, the buzz around it?

Oh yeah! [Yelling] It was GREAT! Kids running up to me and going, "That's the guy from Roger Rabbit!" Happened to me earlier today as a matter of fact. To be a hero for kids, yeah. The only one who was sort of pissed off about all that was my son, Jack.

Why?

Well, I took him to see it and he was just 2 then. And we came out and he wouldn't talk to me. And it took me two weeks to find out what this was all about. The way he thought about it was that any dad who's got friends like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam and he don't bring 'em home is an a--hole, a total a--hole [laughs]!

Do they understand that Dad's pretending when he's onscreen?

Rosa does. She's 6, Jack's 4. Jack's not quite sure about it. He can't quite figure out what I do for a living, you know. He's a little bit too young, really, for his friends to be that impressed. But Rosa became sort of the key student at school with all the kids. You know, "When's your dad coming?" [Proudly] Oh, it was great. She'd say, "Dad, you're going to have to pick me up from school today." Yeah, all right! But they're a little bit disappointed when they see me, though, you know. They think, "Oh, he's just a normal dad, inn't he?"

While you've worked steadily for the last decade or so, Roger Rabbit was a breakthrough of sorts for you because it was seen by everyone. Did that change your career at all?

I dunno, really. After I'd done it, I took a year off. It was crazy, I had nothing left, you know? I mean, there was a stack of scripts at home, but I used to walk in the room and kick 'em, I didn't read 'em. But I went to the loo one day and picked one up to read and it was Heart Condition. And I thought, "Yeah, I'll do this one." But I don't know how Roger Rabbit changed the business' attitude towards me. [Brightly] I suppose my fee went up a bit - that's quite handy!

Weren't you supposed to play the role of Al Capone in The Untouchables?

Oh no, no. What happened was Brian DePalma sent me the script to The Untouchables and said, "Have a look at Al Capone." So I read it and thought, "Yeah, Al Capone, well that's something!" And he [DePalma] said, "Look, I really want Robert DeNiro to play this part." And I was like, "Oh, right." So he said, "But if he's not available, will you do it?" And I said, "Yes, yes, if I'm available.” Then I forgot all about it. One day, I was sitting in my house having breakfast and Linda, my wife, was opening the mail. All of a sudden she says, "There's a check here for $200,000!" [Laughs] I'm like, "What're you talking about?" And there's a little letter that said, "Dear Bob, Thanks for being a great standby. Love, Brian." So I rang Brian up and said, "If you've got any more films you don't want me to be in, I'm available."

Was there a tinge of regret that you didn't get to play Capone?

No, not really, because I got plenty well paid for doing a movie I never did! And I thought De Niro was wonderful in it. I mean, to be considered for a part that De Niro did, yeah, that's all right.

Your family keeps you grounded?

Oh, completely, yeah. They're my home. And also, I've got two kids from my first marriage. Alex is 21, and Sarah is just 17. Sarah's in school and hopefully she'll go on to art college. Alex? God knows where he's going to go. He travels around the world. He's somewhere out there now. He could turn up here any moment.

Do you think any of them will follow in your footsteps and become an actor?

I don't know really. Like, Rosa, she's got all the razzmatazz - if a camera comes out, she'll pose for you any way you like: clothes on, clothes off, any way you like. We do worry about her [laughs]. Sarah's into art, she likes designing, but she might go into animation. And I'd be rather proud of that; I could introduce her to a few top animators. And Alex, when he finds out what he wants to do, he'll do it. Whether it's in the business, I dunno, but it doesn't seem to be.

He still could - you were older than he is now when you became an actor, right?

Twenty-five, yeah.

When you were a kid, what did you want to do when you grew up?

Have a good time.

What did your parents do?

My mum was a nursery school teacher and my dad was a bookkeeper, one step down from an accountant. They were going to have a big family and then they had me and that was the end of that. They didn't have any more. It was very working class, I suppose - I grew up in a poor area of London. But I can't say I ever noticed any deprivation, we were the same as everybody else. And I had a very ‘appy childhood, although I hated school, I really did. I quit when I was 15 . . . and I remember going back about three months afterwards. I was wearing my first tailored suit and I had money in my pocket and the headmaster was standing at the top of the school stairs and he said, "Take one more step, Hoskins, and I'm calling the police!" [Laughs]

So you were a troublemaker then?

No, but I was saucy, very saucy. . . . I'd become a clerk, you know, adding up lists of figures. [Disgusted] Drove me potty! That lasted about six months and that's that. Then I went into the Norwegian Merchant Navy for two weeks, then I dug roads, was a window cleaner, worked in Covent Garden as a porter. You name it, I've done it.

And you studied to be an accountant?

For three years. My dad sort of thought it would be a good idea. I didn't like it. I remember one morning, these certificates came through the mail telling me I was halfway there. And I thought, "Yeah, I'm halfway to being all the people I hate." And I walked in and gave the certificates to my dad and told lam, "Here, you paid for 'em, you can have 'em. I'm going." And I just [headed] off to the Middle East for a couple of years. I was 21, 22 at that point.

Why did you go to the Middle East? Had you been there before?

No, I just bummed around and wound up in the desert in Israel, and that seemed like a nice place to be. I lived with Bedouins for a while, looking after camels. I hate camels, horrible bastards! Then I lived in a kibbutz for six months. I loved it, thought it was a great life, picking oranges and bananas and learning to plow. Then they wanted me to join the army. I tried to explain that I wasn't Jewish, but they said, "Boy, if you're gonna live here . . ." But there was no way I was gonna do that.

So during all this time, you didn't secretly want to be an actor?

No, no. I mean acting was sort of like brain surgery to me - it was another world. It wasn't a thing that would enter my life. Show business, what would I know about show business?

So you left Israel and came back to London. Then what?

I became an actor!

The story of how you became an actor is sort of like Lana Turner at the soda fountain. What happened?

Yeah. I was drinking at a bar with a mate of mine who went for an audition for an amateur play. I came down to meet him and a guy said, "Right, then, you're next," and so I thought, "Right, okay." So I read the script and got the lead in a matter of minutes. And opening night an agent came to see it and said that I should do it professionally, and I said, "Well, get me a job and I will." And she did, and I've been an actor ever since.

And you've never looked back?

No, I've never been out of work! Every-body talks about becoming an actor and always bein' out of work, but I've never been out of work. I did a lot of stage, most of my career was on the stage, then I did the odd television and then film ... then I met Linda ... and suddenly I was sort of an international film star for some reason. . . . [Thoughtfully] I guess suddenly I was based, I was home, I was solid. Yeah. Then I could take it on.

You've been cast opposite a lot of well-known people. Let's name them and you tell me what comes to mind.

Sure, but I'll tell you now: There aren't a lot of people I've worked with that I haven't liked, and if I didn't like 'em, I'll back off.

Richard Gere, your costar from Beyond the Limit and The Cotton Club.

Richard? Yeah! Richard's great. We were in Rome together once. This was after The Cotton Club and I was doing Mussolini and he was doing King David and we were all staying in the same hotel - me and Linda and Richard. And he said, "I've been sent four tickets to see Bob Dylan. Do you want to go?" And I said yeah. So we turned up to see it and they looked at our tickets and told us we had to go 'round the back. And I thought, "S---, we're gonna have to see it from backstage." Anyway, we walked back and we were shown to four seats onstage. So Linda and me and Richard and his girlfriend were sitting there onstage and there were 15,000 Romans with candles and everyone screaming. It was wonderful. We were both trying to be so sophisticated about it, but we both wound up in tears [laughs].

Your director from The Cotton Club, Francis Ford Coppola.

Yeah, he's a genius - a lunatic, mind you, but a genius. One of the great directors. The Cotton Club was an extraordinary story- can't say I loved the script because we never really had one. We had 29 scripts and none of 'em had anything to do with the film. But a big bonus for me on that film was Fred Gwynne. When Francis said to me, "This is your partner in the movie" and I saw Herman Munster there, I couldn't have been more impressed if it had been Marlon Brando. Fred Gwynne's my idol.

Alan Alda, your costar and director from Sweet Liberty.

Yeah. Best time, biggest fun I ever had making a movie. It was me, him, Michael Caine, Michelle Pfeiffer... He put us up in these big mansions in the Hamptons. And Michael and his wife, Shakira, and me and Linda were out for dinner, and Linda and Shakira were like, "Why can't you two always get films like this?" And Michael said, [yelling] "Listen, I've made 53 films and I've never been treated like this! And him, he's only made a few and he's getting treated like this already!"

And your costar from that film, as well as Mona Lisa, Michael Caine.

Well, he's my mate. I knew him from Beyond the Limit, we did that together, too. And he tormented the life out of me on Sweet Liberty, because, see, I was setting up Mona Lisa at that point. And I really wanted him to play the villain in that, but to get him, you know, we couldn't afford him, really, so it would have been a big favor. And he kept saying, "I've got a script here, something called Mona Lisa - have you heard if it's any good?" And I'd just tell him to read it. I mean, I didn't want to say, "Yeah, it's great, you've got to do it!" And so he finally read it and he said it wasn't bad, and we sort of chatted about it and I thought, "Well, that's the end of that." Then on the first day of filming it, there he was: "You didn't think I'd be here, did you?" [Laughs] Tormented me, he did. . . .

Alan Bates, from A Prayer for the Dying.

You want to work with Batey, you know... There's a great shot in that film. We both suffer terribly from vertigo, from heights. And there's a shot in that film with us in a lift - just a cage, really, and it goes way up to the top of this enormous church. And we had to have this confrontation. But if you look carefully at the shot you can see that we're actually holding hands! We were saying, "Don't look down, we are not a pair of sissies." [Laughs] We were supposed to be terribly hutch but we were terrified.

How about the lady you're working with now, Cher?

She's a sweetheart. She's got a sense of humor. We've giggled our way through this picture [laughs]. Oh yeah, love her.

You're right: You liked everybody.

Well, I told you, I like 'em all. I love the people in this business, they're all crazy. This business has given me everything I could possibly want: I'm getting a continued education, I'm being paid very well, I'm working with the people I love, and I love what I'm doing. I love it.

But is all this the result of lucky breaks or is it all from hard work?

I think there's a big element of luck in there, but luck only lasts so long. You get your breaks and you gotta take it and work it. I think, to be asked to come to America and play Americans is incredible. That's luck. But if I hadn't worked hard and turned it into goods when I got it, then ...

This is your second time around as a father and a husband. Are you doing anything differently this time?

Yeah. I'm a lot more attentive. When I started before, I was just 25 and I was starting in the business. And suddenly I was an actor and I had to earn a living and I had a wife and two kids, which, uh . . . [somber] I didn't pay as much attention as I should have and I regret it very much, I do. But to get a second chance is amazing. You've made your mistakes - well, I'm still making mistakes, but they're not as bad as the ones I made before. They ain't as stupid as the ones I made before.

Are you a good father?

[Long pause] Yeah, yeah - if I was a kid, I wouldn't mind having me as a dad. Yeah [laughs].

Do you spend a lot of time with them?

I take one kid to school, then come home and do the shopping. Linda's into super-stores [supermarkets] and I'm into the small shop - I believe in supporting the small shopkeeper. I have my circuit of small shops that I go to. And I cook, I love to cook, and I'm very good at it.

Your kids are growing up differently from the way you grew up, at least financially....

Are you kidding? Of course they are! They like school, for starters.

But do you worry about them getting spoiled, being handed things instead of having to work for them?

Yeah, I mean it'd be wonderful to be bringing home toys all the time. It's a big temptation. But Linda's always like, "You can't give them that, they've got a cup-board full of toys here. You're spoiling them." But then Linda was up here for a week, and she bought all these toys. And now I've got to take all these toys home! How I'm gonna get 'em home, I don't know [laughs]. I'm gonna have to hire a plane.

Do you go out a lot?

Not really. Linda's always wanting to go out more than I do, but you've really got to winkle me out. I like being at home, you know.

But you seem to have a good time when you're out, say, at the Cannes Film Festival.

Oh, yeah, but that's the business. When you're like me and you stay home a lot, when you go out it's a great party. I love a good party, you know.

You attended the Oscars in 1987, and when you were nominated the camera went to your face and you were positively beaming. What were you thinking?

Oh, it was so difficult not to laugh. Here's what had happened: I went down to the bar beforehand and sitting there is Dexter Gordon, James Woods and William Hurt. And we had a toast and said, "Here's to Paul Newman!" We all knew he was going to get it. Paul Newman's wonderful, 'e deserved it! Then of course when they announced that Paul Newman won, we were all sittin' near each other and we'd had a drink, you know, and we were desperately trying not to laugh. It was great.

About your looks: People have described you as everything from a fireplug with eyebrows to a cuddly teddy bear. What do you think of your looks?

[Long pause] Well, I don't really know what I look like; I only see myself onscreen and that's different. Like when I did Pennies from Heaven, the choreographer totally convinced me I looked like Fred Astaire - that I was tall, light, with lanky legs. Then I saw it and it was, Jesus! I never know what I look like.

But are you aware that women adore you, that they find you very sexy?

So I'm a sex symbol, am I? A short, fat, middle-aged man with a bald head? That's a sex symbol [laughs]? I'm a sex symbol and the women are going batty? What am I supposed to say to that? All right!

You get a kick out of being a celebrity, don't you?

Yeah, it's great - I love it. Listen, if you're really feeling low, and someone comes up to you and says, "Bob, I think you're wonderful," that does perk up the day a bit, you know.

What was your darkest time?

[Quietly] I had a nervous breakdown. When I divorced my first wife, I had a breakdown. That was extraordinary. When I split up with my first wife, it was very difficult for me, having those two kids was very difficult. I was going to this psychiatrist, and a good friend of mine who ran a theater said, "You're telling the psychiatrist all your best plots - why don't you come down here and do it in a theater?" And I had written a play called The Bystander about a guy who was sort of living his life through a hole in the wall. He was sick, living in a single room, and next door was a girl. And he was living his life through her, and he just cracked up and had a breakdown. It was based on a true story. So I told my friend this and she said, "Right, we'll do it." I said, "You're f --- ing joking, I'm in pain here." But I did it. And the audience went crazy. And then - smack! - the grief, everything, just went.

You write plays under the name of Robert Williams. Why?

Well, one night I stayed up and wrote this play. So I was lyin’ in bed the next morning and my mate came in and he was looking at all these papers on my desk and he said, "Who wrote this s --- ?" And I said, "Uh, um, uh - Williams. Yes, Robert Williams." And he said it was s--- [laughs]. But they published it and it was done at the National Theatre.

Of all your films, which one is your favorite?

Don't have one. I have a personal favorite performance of another actor's work. That's Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously. When people ask me what acting's about, I show them that. She's brilliant.

You strike me as a very happy man. True?

I'm extremely happy, an extremely happy man. I wasn't always, but I am now. And why shouldn't I be [laughs]? This life is going very well for me.