Hot Tickets
April 1999
Jonny Lee Miller on . . . Plunkett and Macleane
"This film is based on two notorious real-life 18th-century
highwaymen. When Bobby [Robert Carlyle] and I first started talking
about the film with director Jake Scott, we were playing with the
idea of switching the roles of Plunkett and Macleane. Bobby could have
played either role, but it fitted me to be Macleane. Captain James
Macleane was known as the Gentleman Highwayman. He was used to
living in high style and had good social connections but was a
selfish, philandering, gambling, drinker.
Bobby's character, Will Plunkett, is a real scum bag with know-how
and driven by money. They come from different ends of the spectrum
but join forces to hold up the rich and famous. Plunkett wants to
make enough money so that he can escape to America, away from the
grind and the poverty of working-class England. Macleane needs
money to sustain his high cost of living. They hit the jackpot on
their first outing when they hold up the coach of the Lord Chief
Justice, played by Michael Gambon, which makes them think being
highwaymen's an easy option.
We had a tough shoot in mid-winter Prague and the Czech Republic -
but even so Bobby and I had a great time. We had worked together
on Trainspotting, so all the getting-to-know-you stuff was
cut. It's a true buddy movie, but it's also anarchic and subversive
. That's what drew us to doing the film. It isn't one of those
stiff, rustling period piece. In it's way it is really contemporary
. We didn't use the language of the time - you never hear 'zounds'.
We used a dialogue with lots of words such as "geezer". It could
have ended up like Blackadder"
Plunkett & Macleane opens Fri 2 Apr
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