Munster Express Online

If you end up at the cinema over the next few weeks and happen to go and see ‘Robin Hood’, the new movie starring Russell Crowe, don’t get a fright if about an hour into it you hear a flat Waterford accent shouting at Mr Crowe.

That’ll be me.

The mad thing is by rights I shouldn’t be in the movie at all. This time last year I did my first day of filming on it, four weeks later I was basically sacked. How I got to do it in the end is a fair auld story in itself.

Twelve months ago I was in a play at the Royal National Theatre in the West End and I suddenly found myself cast in a scene with Russell Crowe in Robin Hood. Things were on the up and up you might say, and well they were.

I was to be the Church Deacon, very minor nemesis of the Merry Men and the first person to be robbed by Robin. Grand.

I had two days of filming to do, the first day was just me in the background of a scene and then the second day which was to be a few weeks later was where I had all me lines with the big man himself.

That first day of filming was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life. I’ve been working professionally as an actor for 10 years now but nearly all of that time I’ve been on stage.

Apart from having two lines in an episode of ‘Judge John Deed’ and two lines that got cut from the Oscar-nominated ‘Atonement’, I was a complete and utter novice walking onto the set of ‘Robin Hood’. On that first day it really showed.

I was being led across a field in Surrey where they had built medieval Nottingham to meet the man who directed ‘Gladiator’, ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner’ and over to my left on two horses were Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. It’s far from this I was raised, boy.

Bricking it is not the word. I meet all these crazy famous people and it’s all a bit surreal and they put me in my spot and ask me can I say one word to tell Friar Tuck (Mark Addy of ‘Full Monty’ fame) that Robin and Marian are riding through the village to see him.

Just say “Friar” they tell me – that’s all, one word. How difficult could that be? Surely I can’t get that wrong. It’s one word.

So I’m sitting there, all set, nervous as hell but ready to make my major movie debut and the assistant director yells action and Crowe and Blanchett start riding towards us and I look up and point, take a deep breath and exclaim “Friar!” and I say it loud and confident filling the field with the word, so important it is to me.

They yell “cut” and I’m thinking that’s gone really well and it’s only one word but I feel like it’s gone well because I put a lot into it.

I see the assistant director walking over to me, obviously to say well done and as he does I hear the great director Ridley Scott over the walkie talkie shout: “Can someone tell the Church Deacon to tone it down a bit, it’s like he’s announcing the end of the f***ing world.”

See The Munster Express newspaper for full story and film photos.