Carlyle reported to Knightwood bus depot in Glasgow to learn how to drive a bus. One minute he was perched behind the wheel in the depot with someone showing him the gears, next minute he was out on the street driving the thing. He got his licence, though. Things are working, though. A few days after our second meeting in London, Carlyle started filming Face with Antonia Bird, who directed him in Safe , the award-winning TV drama about homelessness, and in Priest , in which he played Linus Roach's boyfriend.
Face is the story of bank robbers on a last heist that goes wrong.
Carlyle plays the lead, Ray, a man whose life of crime is in conflict with the socialist rhetoric he's imbibed from his social worker girlfriend ad activist mother. He comes to me fresh from dinner with some real-life bank robbers. He visibly relaxes. That curtailed their professional prospects. He understands, though, why they do it.