Robin Hood - Speed in Tights!
Published on August 10th, 2009

It’s not everyday you get the chance to be a part of a major Hollywood blockbuster movie, but in June I did just that!

Part I...

I live in Pembrokeshire, which is the arse end of nowhere for those of you who don’t know it, and nothing much ever happens here. But we do have some of the most beautiful and stunning coastline in the UK, and one of our beaches had caught the eye of some Hollywood production companies! At the beginning of the year, the local news papers were buzzing with the story that part of the new Harry Potter film was going to be shot at one of the beaches near me. A few weeks later, and the papers were reporting that another major production, the new Robin Hood film starring Russel Crowe, was also going to be filmed at the same beach as soon as the Potter shoot had finished.

Now that may sound strange, Robin Hood on a beach, but Ridley Scott was using a bit of artistic licence, and had rewritten the script to see Robin and his Merry Men fighting off the French invasion of 1066. They couldn’t film at Dover, due to it being a ferry port these days, and not having much of its beach left (not to mention the problems all the ferry horns would have caused for the sound crew!).

Ridley Scott needed 400 or so extras to play the invading French, so on May 9th open castings were held and I went along. Over 1000 people turned up on the day, some of them dressed in their own medieval costumes in the hope that that would guarantee them a part. I just went along in my usual attire of combats and a Maiden shirt and hoped for the best…

Hundreds of hopefuls queueing up for the casting.

About 3 weeks later, I got an email telling me I had been successful in gaining a place, and asking would I go along for a training day and costume fitting.

The training day was ace! It was run by 2 of the stunt men who are ex Special Forces guys, Dave and Ray. First of all Dave taught us how to march properly, then we were taught to advance in various battle formations. Next it was onto sword fighting, where Ray (who is an absolute scouse nutter!) taught us specific routines to use, so no one would get hurt on set. We were then turned over to the weapons expert for archery training. I have done archery before, but it wasn’t about how accurate you were, all that mattered was that you could look convincing, like you had been firing a bow from the age of 9. In fact we did no target practice at all, just fired the arrows off up a field.

The costumes for the film were amazing! Every little detail had been considered so they looked as authentic as possible. I was told I had been chosen to be a French foot soldier and an English archer, so I had to get fitted for 2 costumes. First up – the French costume. This consisted of woollen trousers, a cotton undershirt, a heavy twill overshirt and a thick padded tunic with 3 fleur-de-lis on the front that went over the top of it all. Some guys had another leather or padded jerkin that went in between the overshirt and tunic layers, but I was spared that, because I couldn’t get my big forearms into one! On our heads, we had to wear a sack cloth coif, a chain-mail hood and then a Norman helmet, which although looked metal, was actually made out of plastic. There were all different styles of boots, but mine were knee high with about 6 feet of leather bindings that criss crossed all the way up. They were quite cool actually…

For the English costume, all I had to do was swap the tunic. I was handed this great big long over tunic with the baron’s crest on the front. It weighed as much as a duvet, and was like wearing one! On the way out of the fitting, a lady from the make up department instructed me not to shave at all until filming had finished.