Robbie Coltrane stuck in our hearts because he could play the best of us and the worst. I worked with him on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where he played Hagrid, the clumsy simpleton of a giant who was always concerned for the good of the children and brought his own big buttery optimistic grin to the character.
He was utterly sweet to the Harry Potter kids, just one of the things that was so endearing about him. You have to remember those kids started off in Potter at nine and 10, they were very little, and would have been very discombobulated by the whole process. He took that on board and actually made the getting of their performances part of his own work, by virtue of how kind he was to them, and how he pointed out to them how they should look in this direction and not that, and so forth.
Of course, as he was a God-given comedian, the scenes he did for me with Frankie de la Tour were just fantastic. They had a wonderful time with it, he had to act up against her character’s disapproval and distrust all the time, and as soon as he had opposition like that his comic chops just came roaring out. My favourite scene I think was the one where Hagrid is making eyes at Madame Maxime, and she is becoming more and more distressed; Robbie was such a wonderful blunderer.
And then he came to a version of Great Expectations I made, as Mr Jaggers, a powerful manipulative lawyer who’ll do anything for you so long as you know what you want, are willing to tell him what that is, and can pay. He developed the most extraordinary hairstyle for the part: it was pomaded, pumped up into a kind of meringue shape on top of his head, and it was dyed a particularly lustrous black. I believe his thinking was: I believe the character is vain, and I want to show my vanity in some fashion. I hadn’t asked him to do it, he just came out of makeup on the first day with it. My initial reaction was: “What’s that sitting on your head, Robbie?” At first I thought it might be a wig, but then I just shut up: one of the things about him was, he was a wonderfully authoritative character actor, and in the end he knew what he was wearing and the way he was looking was right for what he intended.
For the character of Jaggers to work you must believe in his bottomless cynicism and his concealed delight in doing the deluded bidding of his clientele. Robbie played the character with a piercing knowledge of the frailties of the clients who heaped their twisted needs on his chunky shoulders. “You know what I am, don’t you Pip?” he says, as he washes his latest treachery off his hands. And we do know – he’s the worst of us.
So two sides: best and worst. And in his greatest roles a combination of both of those qualities: Cracker, National Treasure, light and dark struggling for supremacy. As a person he was adorable; when you were with him you wanted the time to last. He wasn’t like anyone else. A true eccentric with a raft of unexpected interests and talents. Who else did we know who could take the engine out of a Trabant in 23 minutes?