A splendid lunch with Jimmy McNulty

01 July 2009

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In the first of an occasional series of interviews over meals, Deborah Ross talks to Dominic West about The Wire and the challenge to an Old Etonian of playing an American cop

He was dispatched to Eton at 13 and did not like it at first. He was homesick. Plus ‘I was always worried I was going to be transformed into a southern softie public-school twit but after two years I stopped caring about that because the transformation was complete. It had happened.’ It was weird, Eton. ‘Everyone was being their father. You get 17-year-olds behaving as if they are 60.’ He did not know either David Cameron or Boris Johnson, who were some years ahead, but he knew Boris’s brothers, Leo and Joe, very well. And? ‘They were complete bastards!’ Really? ‘Nah. They were great. Very bright, very funny, very talented family.’ Damn.

He went to Trinity, Dublin, where he studied English, then Guildhall to do drama, and does not appear to have been out of work ever since, although he insists he has. And what are you like, when not working? ‘I go to hardware shops and buy useless bits of ironmongery and then go home and pretend I’m a DIY expert. I will change all the window locks from brass to chrome. It’s that sort of obsessive behaviour to keep the hysteria and violence at bay.’

It’s been a fun lunch and then, when I pay the bill, I discover the cost of the wine has been knocked off. It’s great, food and celebrities. I’m never going to eat with anyone non-famous again. I might even shoot all the non-famous people I know, but that’s fair enough. The way I see it is like this: it’s all in the game, yo — all in the game.

The Wire is now being shown some time or other every week quite late on BBC2, so just buy the box set (£85, from Amazon) like everyone else. You feel me?

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ian skidmore

July 2nd, 2009 12:21pm Report this comment

The Wire is great - except I can hardly understand a word that is said and I do not know why I stay up so late to watch it.I fall asleep halfway through.As a result I have to video it or I would never know how an episode ends. Why when I have vidoed it don't I go to bed before it comes on ?. Don't ask
By the way it is obviously possible to go to Eton an stil not be a gentleman. He ought to have offered you the Dover Sole.And what sort of a crummy restauant ofers you free wine and only has one Dover Sole?It would never have happened in those Welsh restaurants you were so rude about