The “horrible” co-star Ralph Ineson hated working with: “That fucker”
Let’s get it out of the way first and foremost: Ralph Inseon is Finchy from The Office.
He can do anything else that he likes, and he has done to great effect over the years, as we’ll come to, but the fact is that he is one of the finest characters in possibly the best TV programme of all time, so that has to be underlined right out of the gates.
Now that we’ve covered that, we can talk about what an outstanding last decade Ineson has had, graduating from the kind of voiceovers you’d hear on a bingo ad in the middle of the afternoon to one of the most in-demand British actors around, starring in blockbuster movies like Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein update, Robert Egger’s recent horror Nosferatu and even the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the ‘much better than it should have been’ Fantastic Four: The First Steps.
So Ineson has undoubtedly come a long way since Chris ‘bloody good rep’ Finch in Gervais’ still-outrageously good sitcom in 2001, via shows like Game of Thrones and the incredible real-life nuclear drama Chernobyl, which for a time was the highest-rated TV show in history on IMDb.
For ten years or so, however, Ineson had struggled to land big roles, and it was around 2009 when he was cast as ‘Amycus’ in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince that things began to change. He took on that role again in the final two films and then had a small part in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie before he made his first film with Eggers, 2015’s The Witch.
An uber-creepy tale set in 1600s America, the A24 picture also starred Anya Taylor-Joy in an early role and proved to be a mark set by Eggers of the quality he was capable of as a director. It won a raft of awards from critics around the globe
Unfortunately for Ineson, playing the part of the head of the haunted puritan family at the heart of the story came with a sting in the tail, or rather horns on the head, as he had to handle an enormous goat named Charlie who had been drafted in to play ‘Black Phillip’ in the movie, which weighed a full four stone more than the actor.
Ineson told The Hollywood Reporter: “I didn’t have a lot of gas in the tank, really. He was horrible. Really, really horrible. From the moment we set eyes on each other it was just kind of hate at first sight. He had two modes: chilling out and doing nothing, or attacking me.”
Eggers backed Ineson up on his experience on set, saying that Charlie the goat would routinely do something violent if he was supposed to be sleeping and vice versa. Eventually, the goat rammed its horns into Ineson’s ribs, causing a dislodged tendon. Despite such behaviour, Charlie proved a big hit with viewers of the film, especially for the incredibly disturbing moment when the beast reared up onto its hind legs.
Ineson didn’t agree, however, adding: “It’s wonderful that his fantastic performance is bringing notoriety to the film,” he says, “but there’s a little part of me that’s like, ‘Seriously? That f—er?’”
Ineson got his revenge some time later, though, recalling: “There’s an incredible restaurant in London called The Smoking Goat. When Robert (Eggers) was in town, we went there for my wife’s birthday and shared this incredible goat dish. We remembered Charlie. Not so fondly.”
