Gregory grows up...
He looks unrecognisably and unexpectedly tough. John Gordon Sinclair’s floppy, Gregory’s Girl locks have been razored to a brutal crew cut, which is a bit of a shock until he smiles and explains that he’s saving a fortune on hair gel and then, of course, the effect is entirely lost.
Fortunately, he smiles a lot – but a man who’s about to publish his first novel and has just finished a film with Brad Pitt, has a good deal to smile about. ‘Oh, listen to me,’ he says laughing and blushing rather. ‘I didn’t exactly star with him. I was in a couple of scenes with him, but I did get to save his life and I did get to shoot his son, Maddox… that was fun. His dad brought him in for a wee scene to play a zombie; he’s a lovely kid – quite shy, actually.
‘But honestly – and I’m really not trying to be coy here – I would never have expected to have my name anywhere near Brad Pitt’s, let alone act alongside him. I just wouldn’t have. And I was so grateful for the experience that I wrote a letter to the casting director afterwards to thank her.’
John Gordon Sinclair, or ‘Gordy’ as he’s known to his friends, treats the serendipitous turns of his life with a refreshingly wry amusement and his feet very firmly on the ground. They began – these peculiar quirks of fate and happenstances – nearly 33 years ago when, as a 17-year-old apprentice electrician, he joined the Glasgow Youth Theatre ‘for a laugh’. He got spotted by writer/director Bill Forsyth and found himself starring in Gregory’s Girl, one of the best-loved British comedy movies of all time.
Universal adoration, ‘national treasure- dom’ and more film and TV parts followed, including an Olivier Theatre award for the stage musical, She Loves Me. And now, of course, there’s Brad. ‘The film’s called World War Z and I play a US Navy SEAL officer,’ he exclaims.
‘I was convinced the casting director had put me down for the wrong part,’ he continues,’ but she reassured me that she hadn’t. I went in to see her on the Monday and, by the end of the week, I was on set in Falmouth with Brad, who was really attentive, charming and funny – just lovely, actually.’
‘Gordy’, who once described himself as ‘a labourer with imagination’, says, quite genuinely, that he would have been equally as happy if none of these things had happened and he had remained in Glasgow as an electrician.
‘Obviously I’m grateful for all the things I’ve been able to do as a result, but I’ve never been all that comfortable around other actors, or talking about acting and stuff. And I’ve still got this working-class thing about DIY.’ Much to the chagrin of his wife, Shauna – a GP, with whom he lives near Guildford in Surrey, with their two young daughters – he still insists on ‘doing things’ around the house.
His latest project has been his very own writing shed.
‘We had it put in at the bottom of the garden – I know, I know, very Roald Dahl – and the builders were originally going to do all the wiring. But, in the end, I couldn’t let them and I dug a big trench and laid all the cables and did it myself.’
The issue of the writing shed, and its homespun electrics, is an extremely readable thriller called Seventy Times Seven, which is to be published in the autumn. Partly set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and partly in Tuscaloosa, Alabama – ‘because nobody ever goes on holiday to Alabama, and I just liked the way the name, Tuscaloosa, seems to roll o the tongue’ – it embraces both the IRA and organised crime and is, at times, surprisingly violent.
‘I did a lot of research and that bit, the torture scene with the kettle and the boiling water, really happened; there was a famous IRA guy who went around doing that to people.’
He set the book during that period because ‘I’ve always been interested in the Troubles. I kind of grew up in London at the height of the IRA bombing campaign, and I remember wandering around Soho never knowing whether or not there was going to be an explosion somewhere. I wanted to know why it was happening.’ He did a lot of research, thanks largely to a friend of his with IRA connections (he refuses to say any more) and the result is a convincing, convoluted page-turner.
Dee Hepburn and John Gordon Sinclair in Gregory’s Girl
Of course it’s been done before, this actor-turned-writer thing, but not commonly and I wondered how the solitude of sitting down to write compared with the fraternity of the film set. ‘I’ve never really been much of a gang member,’ he says.
Perhaps he’s shy? ‘No, I don’t think it’s shyness. I just don’t think I’m very sociable, so writing kind of suits me.’
With fellow actor Neil Morrissey, John Gordon Sinclair started to write a television drama, which got lost in the mists of Yorkshire Television and never materialised, but he enjoyed the process. Then, when his first daughter was born, he suddenly found he had time on his hands and an overweening sense of responsibility.
‘I stopped working for a while when the girls came along. I really wanted to be around and not miss anything. You hear people complaining about how they never saw their fathers and I didn’t want that, so I was always there, changing nappies, school runs, everything.’
But such devotion to paternal duty cost him and the work dried up a bit. ‘I used to get into trouble because of it. I’d be doing a play and they’d ring me up and say that I needed to be at a technical rehearsal or something that night and I’d have to say: “Well, I’m sorry, I would be there if I had a babysitter, but I’m afraid I don’t, so I’ll have to see you tomorrow”.’
So perhaps writing really does suit him better; anyway, he’s going to be doing a lot of it. Apart from finishing the book’s sequel – it’s already commissioned – the next few months will involve an exhausting round of literary festivals and promotional tours which, presumably, he’ll loathe, with all those gangs of people and talking and socialising?
‘Not at all,’ he says, grinning broadly. ‘I don’t mind chatting about the book; I can talk about that all day. I’m really looking forward to it.’ We parted company outside the restaurant. I was reluctant to see him go – I think he has that effect on most people – and he headed off to Charing Cross to catch the train back to his writing shed and his girls.
Seventy Times Seven by John Gordon Sinclair will be published by Faber and Faber on 6 September, priced £12.99.