Steve Pratt talks to Tynesider Greg Wise about re-making the famous story of Greyfriars Bobby and about his marriage to leading British actress Emma Thompson.

NEWCASTLE-born actor Greg Wise is following wife Emma Thompson into the family film business. Her movie Nanny McPhee was a big hit in cinemas last year and now Wise is doing his bit to attract parents and children into cinemas with his film The Adventures Of Greyfriars Bobby.

This is the true story of the devoted terrier, Bobby, who was so fond of his dead master that he used to sleep on his grave in an Edinburgh graveyard. The cast also features Gina McKee, Sean Pertwee, Ronald Pickup, Ardal O'Hanlon and Christopher Lee.

Wise was pleased with the opportunity to make a movie that was suitable for all the family, including his six-year-daughter Gaia. "In just about everything I do, I murder someone, get murdered or get my bum out," says Wise.

"So it's important to do family films. Bobby and Nanny McPhee means that our little girl can see both mum and dad. It's terribly important to do these films - they're not just kids' films, they're family films."

He and Thompson met on the set of Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility, which won her a best adapted screenplay Oscar, a decade ago. She'd previously been married to actor-director Kenneth Branagh, working with him on several projects.

Judging by Wise's comments, he and his wife aren't planning to work together in the near future. "It's very important to have separate things to do. It can be very hard that I'm known as Mr Thompson. I prefer to try and plough my own furrow," he says..

"If something were to come along that we thought would be great to do, then I'm sure we'd do it together. But she was married before and worked with her husband quite a bit, and that can be difficult."

In Greyfriars Bobby, he plays the minister of the church where the dog's master is buried. Minister Lee comes into conflict with the mill owner who oppresses the poor and hates the popular mutt.

The role meant putting on a Scottish accent, a first for Wise who studied at art school in Edinburgh and drama school in Glasgow. "The most terrifying thing I've ever had to do as an actor was to stand up and give a sermon in front of a church full of Scottish extras," he says. "They didn't throw anything at me, so I think it was all right. But it's a very hard thing to do, a accent in a place where everyone speaks in that accent."

He didn't ask his mother-in-law, Scottish born actress Phyllida Law, for advice about the accent. "She's west coast, this was east coast. I would never practice within earshot of her," he says. "Every once in a while, another of the actors Jimmy Cosmo, would help by saying, 'a little bit less there', or 'a little more there'."

Wise ignored advice given to actors never to act with children or animals. As well as 11-year-old Oliver Golding, as the dog's friend Ewan, the cast were competing against the scene-stealing canine stars.

They were in training for nearly four years, says director John Henderson. Two dogs were used, called Bobby One and Bobby Two. Each one had certain skills. There was also Bobby Six, an animatronic dog who only lasted 12 seconds. "It was washed out to sea and is at present nestling against some oil rig," he adds.

He has nothing but praise for dog trainer Gerry Cott. "It got to a state where I'd say to Gerry, 'I want the dog to run 200 yards flat out down this hill, I want it to turn, stop, put its paws up on the gates of the graveyard'. He'd go, 'right-o'. The dog would do it. And he'd say, 'ah, no, that's one railing over too many'. This is how good he got," says Henderson.

Filming took place in Greyfriars churchyard in Edinburgh which Wise admits he'd never visited despite having lived in the city. "While at university, I spent most of my time at the student theatre called the Bedlam Theatre which is opposite Greyfriars churchyard, so I knew the place very well," he says. "It's a terrible thing to say, though, in the three years I was there I never once went into the churchyard or into the church. So I rectified that and went and met the minister before filming, talked to him and saw the grave.

"He gave me a little booklet on the man I'm playing. He was actually a phenomenal man and I tried to get some of the actual things he said into the script."

Being a Geordie, he's always spent a lot of time around the borders region of Scotland, considering that country his second home. Working there was "an absolute joy", he says. "We were so lucky with the weather too. We had the most phenomenal bitter days but clear days, and when we were shooting the funeral of the man who owned Bobby, there was a freezing fog. The trees were covered in half an inch of frost and the gravestone were all glistening and we were there getting ice in our hair. It was the most mesmeric situation for a funeral."

* The Adventures Of Gregfriars Bobby (PG) opens in cinemas tomorrow.

Published: 09/02/2006