Tim Minchin Tells Us About Playing Friar Tuck in "Robin Hood", Being "F***ing Furious" About Trump

"I think comedy and anger go together well."

Friar Tuck, with his doughnut haircut and portly bod, hasn’t historically been the juiciest part in the films and TV series based on the folkloric good-thief Robin Hood. He’s not even the best of the Merry Men.

But Australia’s own Tim Minchin, who has conquered the worlds of comedy (scour his YouTube for a refresher course) and stage musicals (Matilda, Groundhog Day), didn’t need much convincing to take the part in Otto Bathurst’s latest big-budget adaptation (titled Robin Hood, obvs).

"'Do I want to play a funny role in a massive blockbuster? Yes, I do,'" he jokingly asked himself and answered about his first ever film role, on the phone with Student Edge.

Minchin was told by producers they didn’t want a cliched Friar Tuck, and in casting the wild-haired, famously atheistic Minchin, they succeeded.

"I think [Otto] was particularly interested in me because I’m known—particularly in Britain—for my outspoken godlessness, and Otto has faith in his life, and he quite liked the idea of that tension," he says.

For those unfamiliar with previous versions of the legend, Tuck is expelled from the church for his love of ale and winds up joining Robin Hood’s roaming band of thieves, who steal from the rich and give to the poor.

Taron Egerton stars as Robin, Eve Hewson plays Maid Marian and Ben Mendelsohn takes on the Sheriff of Nottingham in this grittier origin, which offers a new reason behind Tuck’s expulsion; one that suits Minchin’s personal perspective on religion.

"[Tuck] has a huge moral dilemma because he loves being in the church, but he knows it’s f***ed," says Minchin.

He was surprised to watch the final film and discover he's in so much of it, having been added as narrator long after the shoot.

"The film is not what it said on the original script, by a long, long shot," he says.

(He was relieved for another reason too: "My accent was more consistent than I thought it was.")

"Robin is quite f***ed up [in this film]. He’s quite torn up by the war and losing Marian while he was away and torn up by this dilemma of knowing what he knows," he adds.

"So, in edit, they sort of went, 'Where’s the heart in this? Where’s the gentleness in it?' I think they realised Tuck had this gentleness."

Does this mean more movies for Minchin?

"I don’t like hearing myself sing and I would never watch one of my own comedy shows, but I don’t mind myself on camera," he says.

"As in, I don’t like myself in the mirror, [but] when I see myself on camera, I’m an interesting looking character. 'Oh, that’s good,'" he laughs.

Next, he’ll star in Upright on Foxtel in 2019, a show he’s co-written and in which he appears "in every f***ing scene".

He’s also hoping to "sneak into" the upcoming film adaptation of his musical Matilda. (He believes bringing Matilda back to the movies is a "f***ing cracking idea", but as for his other Broadway hit, well: "I don’t think Groundhog Day should go back to screen.")

However, 2019 will also see Minchin return to his musical comedy roots, performing live in Australia for the first time since 2012. His stage show, "BACK", promises "old songs, new songs [and] f*** you songs".

"I think comedy and anger go together well," he explains.

Minchin’s most famous songs—chastising Cardinal Pell, "No" voters in the Marriage Equality debate, and even those who use plastic bags at the supermarket—prove his point. However, he now has new concerns.

"What I was trying to do was be a voice of righteous anger and make people laugh about it, and now voices of righteous anger are a flood," he says.

"I almost feel like I was part of the problem, but I still think we need carefully constructed polemics; I don’t want it to just be another person screaming into the void about something that makes them angry."

Don’t mistake him, though: "I’m f***ing furious about the stuff we progressives are f***ing furious about: Trump and Brexit. Literally, it’s like a state of anxiety all the time, and I think it's very damaging to be in a state of anxiety all the time. But I do think I need to say to progressives, we have to f***ing sort our s*** out because we’re no better than them if we’re just lying and screaming. We have to be the place that truth resides."

"I want to hold myself to account, I guess," he adds.

At least he can partly take credit for the ban on plastic bags, almost 13 years after his rock anthem made the case.

"I think everything good that’s happened in this country in the last ten years is just me," he jokes.

Robin Hood arrives in Australian cinemas 22 November. Get tickets to BACK here.

Header Image: eOne