| Jonny and the gentleman highwayman by Jonny
Lee Miller
The 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 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 pieces. In its 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.
Taken from ...This
is london
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