TV HAMISH ON HIS NON-STOP LIFE...
…AND THE LOVE SPLIT HE CAN’T GET OVER
SUNDAY MIRROR (LONDON, ENGLAND)
25 JUNE 2000

Hamish Clark may be a national heart-throb and a millionaire to boot, but he bounces into the Soho bar like a hyper-energetic kid.

The Monarch Of The Glen star, who has made a fortune from TV ads for Vodafone, barely pauses for breath before telling how much he loves living in London.

“I live hard, play hard, work hard and hurt hard,” he says. “I go out to eat and see people every night. I’m a social animal.

“Acting and living in London makes me feel at home for the first time in my life. When I was growing up and until now I always felt out of the swim, that I didn’t fit in. Now I feel as though I’m in synch. I feel I’ve come home.”

Hamish, who rents a two-bedroom-flat in Queens Park with a friend from drama school, adds: “You stand on a street corner and either Cromwell raised his banner there or Marianne Faithful kissed Mick Jagger.

“I tell you something - when Peter Pan’s flying over the rooftops or Wee Willie Winkie’s knocking on the doors, that’s not happening in Dundee or Bristol or York, it’s happening in London.”

Perhaps conscious of how this love affair with the English capital might sound back in his home town of Broughty Ferry, Dundee, Hamish is quick to add that he’s still proud to be a Scot.

“But I’m not nationalistic about being Scottish. I’m British. I’m not a professional Scotsman, don’t have to have a sticker on the back of my car, I don’t need that kind of proof.

“I also don’t have to live in Scotland to love it and love the people. I certainly don’t buy into that attitude of, ‘We’re Scottish and everyone else is a tosser’. I can’t stand that.

“I love London and use all of it. I get in a cab and discover a new restaurant in Hampstead, and next night I’m eating somewhere on the river, and then I’m in a club in Soho.

“I burn the candle at both ends, but it doesn’t seem to show in my face. I never really look a day older.”

It’s true. Hamish in the flesh could pass for at least 10 years younger than his 34 years. And as he is eyed-up by a table of pretty girls in the Soho bar, he has a bravado that gives him an air of confidence.

But staring into his drink and lugging on a cigarette, he admits his love life has still not recovered from breaking up two years ago with his long-term girlfriend, an English actress.

“I was heartbroken. I still see her and we’re really close, but it’s been very difficult to form another meaningful relationship. It doesn’t work to decide, ‘I’m over this I’m ready for someone else’. That’s bullshit. You just have to sit with your feelings instead of trying to run away from them.

“It’s not great fun to be sad, but if you don’t try and suppress it you might just move in the right direction.

“We’re constantly trying to fix what we feel. We hate being sad so we try and change it by getting drunk, getting a haircut, going on holiday or buying what we don’t need.

“My way is, stay with your feelings, don’t try and fix them and then you’ll come to an appropriate place. It takes tremendous guts and I’m not good at it, but I try very hard.

“I’m thrilled to be doing the second series of Monarch, but I know I’m not going to have a romance up there. I already know everyone. I’ve got lots of friends who are girls, but I’m not tucked up in bed with anyone at the moment and haven’t been in any serious way for two years.”

He adds: “I’ve only gone out with one Scottish girl in my life - and that’s when I was a student in Edinburgh.

“I’m quite traditional when it comes to girlfriends. They’ve all been young actresses in London, independent, ambitious and not looking for security or suburbia.

“They’ve been well brought up young women, English roses, and because they’ve been actresses there’s been a Bohemian quality to them.

“I don’t tremble and shake around girls, but I see them as very special in the same way that Duncan sees Lexie as special in Monarch.

“He’s very chivalrous, he’d wear Lexie’s colours if he could, and it’s all about honour and what’s right. But at the same time he wants her to see him as cool, driving a Land Rover and wearing a leather jacket. He wants her to think he’s a glamorous hero, though really he’s just a wee boy doing his best.

“In real life I tend to feign shyness around women for effect so they want to mother me and, as a result, I find myself out to supper with them, so the approach is definitely a winner.

“Even though I haven’t had a girlfriend for two years I’d like to get married one day, and I’m good with kids and always assumed I’d have them. My sisters have kids and I love them.”

Hamish, who is preparing to go to Invernessshire for five and a half months to film the second series of Monarch, says his role has helped make him much fitter. “I was running up and down mountains for take after take because Duncan is so high-energy.

“You try doing that for five months in a kilt - you get very fit. I had to have physio on my legs every week to keep going.

In Monarch, Duncan’s at least 10 years younger than I am. I feel blessed because I’ve always looked young and nobody can explain it. Doctors are amazed.

“When I was 18, I constantly passed for 12. I was tiny. I’m small now, just 5ft 6in, and I get a tailor to take in my trousers at the bottom so they’re like stovepipes just so I look older.”

Hamish sweated his way through grinding jobs to pay for acting school. “I left university at 21 and spent eight years having my arse kicked around factories and Oddbin shops to get the money for drama school, and I was skint all the time.

“Every day I believed I was taking a step closer to being an actor. I never once thought, ‘Screw this, I’ll go and become a lawyer. The opportunity came for me when I was picked to play Doctor Roger in My Wonderful Life.

Hamish struck financial gold when he was chosen as the TV face of Vodafone.

“Now I have money it’s great. I only passed my driving test yesterday and have always wanted a second-hand Mini so I’m going to buy one, or a British racing green MGB GT.

“I love the Beatles, so I’ve had dark blue velvet suits made. I knew exactly what the cut should be and how many buttons, but I’ve always been an Oxfam guy. I like my old tweed jackets.

“Now I can go to Jermyn Street and have a range of suits made…and someone else can pick them up at Oxfam a few years later.”