I starred in Only Fools & Horses and Lock, Stock… now I run Kray twins crime tour & sell cannabis from the Caribbean

Scottish Sun

5 days ago

MEAN MACHINE I starred in Only Fools & Horses and Lock, Stock… now I run Kray twins crime tour & sell cannabis from the Caribbean
'SO HAS the interview started yet?' Vas Blackwood asks, as wind chimes rattle softly in the background.
He's speaking over the phone from the Caribbean where he's polishing a film script which he plans to star in.
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Actor Vas Blackwood splits his time between London and the Caribbean
Credit: Vas Blackwood
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Vas running a Kray twins tour in East London
Credit: BRIT MOVIE TOURS
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During his breakout performance in Only Fools and Horses as Lennox Gilbey
Credit: IMBD
'I'm pleased with it, the funds have gone into bond, so we'll see what happens,' he explains.
The 62-year-old is not necessarily an actor that everyone knows by name - but many of his characters have achieved cult status.
His one-off turn as Lennox 'The Shadow' Gilbey in a 1986 episode of beloved BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses, for one.
Another is gangster Rory Breaker in Guy Ritchie's 1998 film debut Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
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The director told him during casting that he'd been a fan ever since he saw him as Winston in The Lenny Henry Show in the late 80s.
'Lennox!'
When he's back in the UK, where he has a North London base, he says he gets stopped all the time by people shouting 'Lennox!'.
I tell him he's a British TV and film icon and he laughs, saying: 'I feel blessed every day.'
A jobbing actor all his life, dad-of-three Vas never stops working. Whenever he's not shooting, he can be found running a Kray twins tour in East London's underbelly.
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'I start at the Blind Beggar and roll from there,' he explains. 'I bring in the whole gangster thing, but it's centred on Ronnie and Reggie.
'There's a couple of locations from Lock, Stock and I talk about modern gangsters - by the time we're done, you are a gangster,' he adds, laughing.
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"It's all fun with Uncle Vas."
But there's another reason for him being in the Caribbean: he's putting the finishing touches to his latest venture - a medicinal cannabis brand named after his Lock, Stock character.
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'The Caribbean's going to be like Rory's sauce - Rory's sauce is coming from the Caribbean,' he says.
'I'm ironing out things whilst I'm here. It comes straight from the film - they take my cannabis and try to sell it back to me. It's a declaration of war!
'I'm working on slogans for it, I've got one: 'I'll chill ya',' he says.
Rory's sauce
It's currently illegal to sell products in the UK containing THC, the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis, but Vas is planning ahead.
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In several Caribbean nations, for example, the drug has been legalised for medical purposes.
'We'll start with CBD oils, things like that, without THC,' he says, referring to his plans for the UK market.
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Vas is possibly best known as Rory Breaker in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Credit: IMBD
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Vas with his Lock, Stock cast mates, including Jason Statham
Credit: Handout
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Vas and Jones remain close friends
Credit: Roger Donovan
'In the Caribbean it's legal, in the sense you can apply and get a licence to use medicinal marijuana and then go to your chemist.
'This is what's going to be happening in the UK in the not too distant future. This is for life.'
He goes on to say: 'It's so structured with the THC, it's very controlled. You don't have to hang around with someone on a street corner to score a bit of weed, you can go to the chemist.'
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Vas adds: 'Rory Breaker is going with the guidelines - but don't worry about that, as soon as we're allowed, the Rory Breaker strain of cannabis will be the most popular.'
I looked at them and all the lines in my head went - I was a fanboy about to watch an episode.
Vas Blackwood
He explains how he was a 'ganja baby' in his teens, growing up around Highgate, but he took his acting career 'very seriously'.
'I vision boarded it, and you become what you are. I became what I am.'
His big break, so to speak, came about with his Only Fools guest part when he was just 24.
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He'd been to drama school and done fringe theatre, as well as a few TV spots - and he was a huge fan of the show.
'I looked at them and all the lines in my head went - I was a fanboy about to watch an episode,' he said, recalling first seeing stars David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst in costume on the set.
Unusual for the BBC show, The Longest Night episode from season 5 saw a guest star take centre stage.
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Vas is about to launch a medicinal cannabis brand
Credit: VAS BLACKWOOD
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He is regularly stopped in the street by people shouting 'Lennox!'
Credit: IMBD
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Vas' tour starts at the Blind Beggar pub
Credit: BRIT MOVIE TOURS
Filmed in front of a live audience, it was set almost entirely on one room, with Vas - whose character took the leads hostage in a supermarket back office - in almost every shot.
They'd done rehearsals for five days in a hall in Chiswick before doing the technical rehearsal at Television Centre, and then the next day the proper shoot.
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Recalling his sudden hit of anxiety, Vas says: 'I had to kick myself from within my soul, my centre, my core, all the way up. 'You're Lennox, you're Lennox'.
'David, when he saw me, did the shoulder roll. He said 'alright there, Lennox', and I just went, I was laughing to myself.
'The concentration level had to be very high. You'd start laughing if you dropped out of character.'
As an actor you have to hold your own. They might be difficult but that's nothing to do with you. You're not here to be their friend.
Vas Blackwood
As for his co-stars, Vas was full of praise, saying there was 'no ego', adding: 'They made me feel a million dollars.
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'They could've treated me a lot different. The industry can be like that sometimes.
'As an actor you have to hold your own. They might be difficult but that's nothing to do with you. You're not here to be their friend.'
During earlier rehearsals he remembers during a break Jason turning to Lyndhurst and asking 'how's the flying going?'.
Vas says: 'I was thinking flying, okay, what's that about? Well, Nicholas Lyndhurst actually flies an aeroplane, and he was learning to fly at that point.
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Twin brothers and organised crime bosses Ronnie and Reggie Kray in 1964
Credit: Getty
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Vas is still close friends with director Guy Ritchie
Credit: Andrew Sims - The Times
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Only Fools and Horses stars David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Buster Merryfield
Credit: BBC
'It hit me, they're so not like Del and Rodney, these two.'
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Vas still has copies of rehearsal scripts they used. 'It was a big moment for me as a young actor, I was very fortunate, but you've got to give yourself a pat on the back,' he says.
'It was like a theatre performance and we had an audience. Theatre is my thing, most actors worth their salt love a bit of theatre. You hold the moment, it was great.'
Being called to Television Centre
Despite being a huge fan of Only Fools, he admits it was touch and go whether he would even take the part after it was offered.
He was on the verge of being cast as a regular in a new Channel 4 show when he was called into White City by show producer Ray Butt.
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Many stars of the day had been impressed by Vas' performances in fringe theatre productions, and he'd already appeared with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders in ITV sitcom Girls on Top the year before.
He believes he had also already been around the BBC at the time, though can't remember exactly how he came to the attention of Butt.
'It was all very peculiar how I got offered the job,' he recalls.
The producer - looking every bit like Del Boy himself, wearing a flat cap and smoking a cigar - welcomed him into Television Centre and took him to a little office on the fifth floor.
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Handing him the script, he said he'd be back in 45 minutes.
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Vas also appeared in Mean Machine with Jones in 2001
Credit: UIP
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Vas was called into BBC Television Centre by Only Fools producer Ray Butt to read the script
Credit: Alamy
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Vas was full of praise for Sir David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst
Credit: Doug Seeburg - The Sun
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Vas says: 'From the first page I was laughing, especially when he pulls the gun and says 'open the safe!''
When Butt returned, he excitedly asked what he thought, to which Vas replied: 'It's brilliant, Ray.' When he revealed he had another offer, Butt confidently told him: 'Don't worry about that, you'll do this - it's much better.'
Vas says his thinking was: 'Getting a TV series would be worth more to me than working one-off for the BBC.'
Butt wasn't deterred and as he led him out, Vas said he was thinking 'who is this man?'
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He dashed to a phone box and called his agent, who told him the Channel 4 producers were 'still making their mind up' - they wanted him but they were still deciding on the rest of the cast.
'A week or two later Ray was pressuring my agent,' Vas continues. 'In the end, I just decided to do Only Fools and Horses.
It's little things like that - and I tell you what, I dunno whatever happened to that Channel 4 show, but this was the best thing that ever happened to me and I thank my lucky stars every day.
Vas Blackwood
'It's little things like that - and I tell you what, I dunno whatever happened to that Channel 4 show, but this was the best thing that ever happened to me and I thank my lucky stars every day.'
The show, despite coming to a finish after more than two decades in 2003, continues to top all-time favourite British TV charts, and is repeated almost daily on the likes of UK Gold.
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'I go places everyday and people say 'ah Lennon, Lennox! Say the line!' Do you know how many times I've said it?'
Without any prompt, Vas says: 'They seek him here, they seek him there, those policemen seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell, that damn elusive sha-a-dow.'
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Vas worked with Lenny Henry in the 1980s after he spotted him in fringe theatre
Credit: Rex
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Vas worked with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders early in his career
Credit: Rex
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Vas was not surprised that Jason Statham became a huge star in Hollywood
Credit: Getty
He adds: 'I get people in stitches every time - I look at it as a bit of a blessing, the stars looking down on me and saying you're still in this to win it, or whatever the case maybe.'
The Only Fools performance was followed by the regular role of Winston in The Lenny Henry Show, as well as an episode of French & Saunders, and then three seasons of teen comedy Spatz.
Through the 90s Vas also appeared in the likes of The Bill and Casualty before landing possibly his biggest role as gangster Rory Breaker.
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The black comedy crime caper, made for less than a £1million, was met with critical acclaim and major commercial success.
'To have worked with Guy on his first film, it set me in stone there and then. It's an iconic role, it's all there,' says Vas.
To have worked with Guy on his first film, it set me in stone there and then. It's an iconic role, it's all there.
Vas Blackwood
'Watching that film just reminds me of London,' he continues, laughing. 'If you know the streets how I know them, there's all these characters, they might be shady but they have a sense of humour.
'It's all a mix-up and that's London to me.'
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Vas based Breaker on two people he knew growing up, one was Gilbert Wynter, a jeweller and enforcer for the Adams crime family who disappeared without a trace the same year Lock, Stock was released.
'I went to school with Gilbert, he was a soft touch, really, but a character,' says Vas.
The other inspiration was Trevor Smith, a bank robber who rubbed shoulders with 'loveable rogues' in high end Chelsea.
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Ronnie and Reggie Kray, seen here at home after helping police with their inquiries into a shooting in 1966
Credit: Getty
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The Blind Beggar pub on Whitechapel Road in Mile End, East London, where the Krays used to regularly drink
Credit: Getty
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Vas hopes to work again with Ritchie - seen here shooting The Gentlemen season 2
Credit: Click News and Media
The casting had been a bit of a mishmash. The film had been due to be shot the year before but then the investment fell through.
Vas says: 'I wasn't attached at first. When the money came through again a lot of the actors cast had moved on to different jobs so there was availability.
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'I can't say they got second best because it's such a successful film,' he says, laughing. 'It's all about timing. It wasn't the right thing with the first cast.'
Lock, Stock casting process
He remembers Ritchie telling him how much he loved his performance as Winston in the Lenny Henry Show, and how he'd watch it when he got home from college.
'He had me in mind from that role,' explains Vas.
At one stage during the audition, Ritchie asked him to run his lines and began filming him from different angles.
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'He knew he wanted me to do it, but he was more interested in the camera than what I was saying,' says Vas.
'He was fitting faces in his mind.'
He recalled as they headed into another office, Ritchie began asking him about taxes.
'It was due to him being a young director and not understanding everything, so I gave him advice and he was happy and we were on,' Vas says.
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Vas in 2004 film Creep
Credit: check copyright
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Vas and Jones at the premier of Mean Machine, at the Odeon in Glasgow, with then Celtic players Steve Guppy and John Hartson
Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
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Vas promoting the Change For Kids campaign
Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
'I just knew he was special, there was something about him.'
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He says the energy on set was electric, but everyone 'would come in ready to give 110%' each day.
'We all got our heads down and delivered for Guy.'
Vas goes on to say: 'The shooting schedule was broken up unusually - it was how Guy wanted to work.'
He remembers Ritchie sitting by a monitor rather than behind the camera on set for his scenes. 'He never once came and talked to me about my performance. I'd say 'Guy, how was that?' and he'd reply 'that's great, no problem'.
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'It was all in the edit for him and I was doing exactly what was on the paper.'
However, there was always room for ideas. Having grown up around Cypriots in Kentish Town, Vas had suggested he speak some Greek in the film - which Ritchie allowed, and even came up with the idea for Breaker's iconic wig.
'I met my character's minders and they had bald heads and I was bald, so I said 'maybe it would have more impact if I was wearing a wig',' says Vas.
'Guy said 'leave it with me'. I turned up on set to get my make up and costume sorted and they had a wig,' he says.
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Vas was due to appear in Ritchie's follow-up movie Snatch two years later but other commitments meant he was forced to drop out.
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It was Vas' idea for Rory Breaker to wear a wig
Credit: Polygram
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Vas with Gary Lineker in comedy show Spatz in 1991
Credit: Thames Television
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Vas based Breaker on two underworld figures he knew growing up
Credit: Polygram
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While further Ritchie projects, which he didn't reveal, 'didn't fit quite right'.
But the pair remain close. 'Guy's like a brother to me, we talk as often as possible,' says Vas.
'I'm sure we'll do something else - it's all about the style of the role.
'If it fits, it fits. They don't need to audition me, if they know there's something I could master. We don't beg for anything, it's how our relationship is. We're always batting and balling with things like that.'
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Working with Jason Statham
In 2001, Vas would go on to appear in Mean Machine, reuniting with Lock, Stock castmates Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham, the latter of which was already making waves in the US.
'Jason was working his way up,' he says. 'He came over from America to do the role - he was very close with Vinnie. He was on that trajectory.
'Jason Statham has an appetite for learning. That's why he is where he is now, he takes everything on as mute, he doesn't take things for granted.'
Vas says it was actually Jones who ensured Lock, Stock even got made.
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'Not a lot of people know this but Vinnie was the seed investor for Lock, Stock,' he explains.
'He put 100 grand up. When he left football he was very serious about the acting and he was looking for stuff.'
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The actor has continued to act regularly since the 1980s
Credit: Rex Features
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Vas appeared with James Buckley in The Comedian's Guide to Survival
Credit: Rex
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Vas provided voices for the video game Fable II
Credit: Handout
Ritchie and producer Matthew Vaughn were 'running around' with the script trying to find funding and it came by Jones, and he loved it, says Vas.
'He put the first 100k down, then more investors followed. The rest is history.'
Vas had first met Jones through footballer pal Jon Fashnu, with Fashnu and Jones being part of Crystal Palace's infamous 'Crazy Gang'.
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'With Vinnie Jones, you can be walking in a forest with him, or down a street - he'll say 'what tree's that?'' says Vas.
'If it's got apples you'll say 'an apple tree'. But he'll know exactly what tree it is and what birds live in it.
'He likes the outdoors and bit of the hunting. And with trees, if it's an apple tree he'll tell you what type of apple it is.
'A lot of people are talking about saving the planet, but they can't do that.'
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Vas would go on to star in the likes of horror film Creep (2004) and provide voice work for video game Fable II (2008) and TV series Thunderbirds Are Go, among other live action roles, including two White Collar Hooligan films and Inbetweener James Buckley-starring The Comedian's Guide to Survival (2016).
He got involved in Brit Movie Tours in around 2018. His Lock, Stock co-star Stephen Marcus, who played Nick the Greek, had initially run it before relocating to LA.
After a little hesitancy, Vas agreed to take it on for select dates when he's back in London.
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Vas took over the Kray twins tour in 2018
Credit: BRIT MOVIE TOURS
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The tour takes in various spots in the East End
Credit: Vas Blackwood
'I get 50 plus people,' he says. 'I get loads of people, they love it. I do it like a theatre performance, you get value for your money.'
Many customers want him to recite lines from his famous performances and he's happy to oblige.
'They say, 'can you say that line?' I say 'why not?' and pretend like they're the first-ever person to ask. If the lines were terrible they wouldn't say anything, so I don't mind.'
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He adds: 'You get dads and mums coming with their kids who are die hard Only Fools and Horses fans, and I'm thinking 'that's another market there'.'
He's always fascinated by how much interest there is in infamous bad guys like the Krays.
His daughter went on a Pablo Escobar tour in Columbia which is run by the drug king pin's son and which ends at his grave.
'You can have a line of coke on his grave,' he says. 'Not that she did.'
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Describing his own interest in the Krays, he explains: 'Whatever they got involved in, there's a lot of folklore, with a lot of bad there comes a lot of good.
'We shouldn't judge too hard. If you commit a crime and go to prison, who am I to judge you?
'You've been locked up for a period of your life and that's your punishment.'
Referring to the Krays, he says: 'I've fallen in love with the in-between bits.
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'We're all just getting on with our lives in our own way.'
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