- Robert Carlyle, The Full Monty, 1996. Two Hughs – Bonneville, and Grant – were way off-target suggestions for unemployed Sheffield steelworkers turning into Chippendale strippers to bring home some bacon. Bonneville was the future Lord Crawley of Downton Abbey, 2010-2015, for heaven’s sake… and Grant was far too posh! Lee Evans plus two of The Young Ones comedy troupe, Rik Mayall and Nigel Planer, would have been way over the top. First choice Nicholas Lyndhurst (Rodney in Only Fools and Horses, 1981-2003) said “too cold at that time of year to take your clothes off.” Finally, Trainspotter Carlyle made a superb Gaz in the best Ken Loach film not made by Ken Loach.
- Jim Broadbent, The Borrowers, 1996. Hugh Bonneville, Ian McNeice,Kevin Pollak were short-listed for Pod Clock, patriarch of the tiny family living beneath the floorboards of a house owned by ”human beans” – in the fourth of six screen versions (including a Japanese toon) of the 1952 Mary Norton book about the four-inch high Clock family living beneath the floorboards of a house owned by ”human beans.” Peter Sellers nearly played the role in 1962.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2