Vinnie Jones and His Number Plates

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His own number plate prompted a singular encounter a few years ago.  “I was driving and an old geezer was driving behind me. He kept flashing his lights so I pulled over, thinking there would be trouble. He came out of his car and said ‘Where did you get that from?’ pointing at my number plate. ‘I had that in 1939!’ What are the chances of that?” 

Movie success has its benefits, so surely now, Vinnie could have any plate he fancied. What would be his ultimate?  “I like what I have. I mean, I might see something good every now and then but, like I said, it becomes a part of you, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t want to swap mine.” 

Back to the subject of that movie success: Vinnie himself would surely agree that his early parts were not exactly demanding of a highly developed acting talent. The fact that he was selected for his roles in the Ritchie films because of his image meant that there was a real likelihood of typecasting. Scepticism about Jones’s real acting ability continued with his subsequent films, as none of the parts he played really put it to the test. 

When ask if he finds the tough-guy parts hard to play, Vinnie switches on his withering stare. Completely straight, he says, curtly: 

“No.” 

After a second of chilling silence, our interviewer notices the hint of a twinkle in his eyes, and everyone starts breathing again. 

The run of simple hard-case roles was interrupted in 2001 when he played a footballer in Barry Skolnick’s remake of The Mean Machine. The movie was about a star footballer who found himself in prison. Paradoxically, it was in depicting a character who was, in some respects, an echo of Vinnie’s former sporting incarnation, that his first real acting test came. Although consensus among audiences and critics was that his old colleague from Lock Stock and Snatch, Jason Stratham, gave the most memorable performance in The Mean Machine, there was also unanimous acknowledgment that Vinnie actually could act. Furthermore, he had done a pretty good job of it. 

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