No stranger to the darker, edgier roles available in cinema, the versatile Scottish actor Robert Carlyle is set to play the father of the McCourt family in Alan Parker's movie based on Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller, Angela's Ashes.
A spokesman for the production told The Irish Times last night that Carlyle is "in advanced discussions" to play the role.
Although he is best known for playing the amiable policeman Hamish Macbeth on television, and the unemployed steelworker turned male stripper in The Full Monty, Carlyle (35) has specialised in playing intense characters.
He played a violent, hard-drinking criminal in Trainspotting, a man who renounces socialism for crime in Face, a gay Liverpudlian sexually involved with a young curate in Priest, and a politically conscious Glaswegian bus driver caught up in the Nicaraguan war zone in Carla's Song. However, Carlyle was not the first choice for the role of the alcoholic Malachy McCourt. Liam Neeson was in discussion with the producers but could not come to a financial arrangement.
The pivotal role of Angela McCourt will be played by the English actress, Emily Watson, who received an Oscar nomination for her performance in Breaking the Waves. Alan Parker will begin shooting Angela's Ashes in Ireland in September. It will be the director's second film of Irish working-class life following his successful 1991 film of Roddy Doyle's novel, The Commitments.
"It's a very beautiful story,` Mr Parker told The Irish Times. "And I'm looking forward to any excuse to getting back to working in Ireland."
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