www.herald.co.uk 22 May, 2001 Menacing Denis Ellie Carr He is the actor formerly known as Denis Lawson.  Now he's more famous as Ewan McGregor's uncle.  But he's not bitter. Denis Lawson is sitting in a Kosher restaurant in the heart of London's Jewish community in Golder's Green, wearing a bagel on his face.  That's right.  A bagel.  The Scottish actor is here to talk about his lead role in BBC Scotland's forthcoming pilot The Fabulous Bagel Boys - probably the first ever "cop-deli show" - and when the photographer asks him to pose with a half bagel where his lips should be, he obliges without so much as a faintly arched eyebrow. There are other actors would not be so willing.  Imagine said bagel flying across the room and landing in some disgruntled Jewish princess's chicken schnitzel and you get the picture.  But Lawson, the 53-year-old Crieff-born actor whose name has now officially had grafted onto the phrase "Ewan McGregor's uncle", is not that type of guy.  Many performers are one person in front of the camera and another in the wings, but Lawson has no visible joins.  From the moment he steps through the door of Bloom's famous kosher restaurant, Lawson is on stage. You're thinking ego-maniac.  But it's more like a hard graft.  The star of ITV dramas The Ambassador and Bob Martin is here to pulicise a show and, boy, will he publicise it.  Even if it means sitting in front of the gents' toilets having make-up applied or eating bowls of chopped herring and liver (he is a lapsed vegetarian when it comes to Jewish food) with a camera trained on his face.  He is poked and prodded while he tries to eat his lunch and never complains.  In fact, he makes it look like he's have a ball.  The bagel incident leads to one bagel wise-cracking after another ("I'm a pro! See me, See bagels", "Ach, I'm known for my bagel control").  It's exhausting watching the room spin around him.  And that, it seems, is what being Denis Lawson is all about.  In a way he's an actor from a bygone era where the greasepaint never comes off - he requested a make-up artist for this photo-shoot - and the only way to survive is to keep on smiling.  With his elegant dancer's poise, the legacy of years of jazz and tap lessons; his groomed greying hair and never-ending supply of banter, it's an act so honed that it is hard not to imagine there is quite another Denis Lawson bubbling away underneath.   However, occasionally you see a chink in the make-up.  The actor still fondly remembered for his role in Local Hero and bit-parts in pre-McGregor Star Wars is endlessly charming and way too much of a gentleman to object to a question.  But once or twice during the interview he clams up.  When I mention that BBC Scotland seem to be styling him as a mature woman's Hamish MacBeth in his role as Jewish policeman DI Morris Rose, his eyes go blank and he deadpans his response.  "Well I an that," he says.  And it's clear we will go not further. Later I ask about Michael Barrymore, the gay entertainer hauled through the press after a post-club party at his house led to the death of a man in his pool.  Lawson's response is to protect Barrymore, his co-star in Bob Martin, by quipping: "well, you know more than me."  End of conversation.  He is much too nice to tell me it's none of my business, but the mask has slipped. Trouper that he is though, it's back in seconds.  And while maintaining it looks like hard work, he seems to enjoy every minute.  But there is a dangerous side to this need to perform.  He is the first to admit that he has driven himself to the point of nervous collapse more than once.  "I'm more careful now, but in the past I would always give 100% of myself to every single show.  If it was a matinee and it wasn't quite full I would just kill myself.  And at that time I would be filming during the day and performing at night.  I did myself a lot of damage physically and mentally during those periods." All of which is in sharp contrast to the famously laid-back Ewan McGregor.  The Trainspotting star is known for pitching up to interviews scruffily dressed and saying what comes off the top of his head, while his uncle Denis gives the impression he would rather die than be interviewed with a hair out of place.  And while I am prepared for the fact this proud actor may well clam up when asked to comment on his megastar of a nephew, this is where the mask begins to soften.  Nowhere is he less scripted and more warm that when he talks about his family, and McGregor is no exception. The pair are obviously close.  They love working together and at McGregor's request Lawson made his directorial debut last year by casting his nephew in the play Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs.  For Lawson the abiding memory is that it was "a very emotional collaboration".  You get the impression it was in many ways the ultimate expression of a relationship based on careful nurturing on Lawson's part, and admiration on McGregor's.  So did Lawson influence his nephew in his chosen career? "Well of course I did," he replies.  "I used to appear at the house buzzing with what I was doing in London.  I think that was enough.  He was about ten or 11 when he first said to me (Lawson effects a high-pitched schoolboy voice it's hard to imagine McGregor ever possessing) 'I want to be an actor.'  It's all he ever wanted to do."  What he leaves out until I probe him is the groovy uncle Denis also used to pitch up at the McGregor home spreading hippy vibes with his bare feet and afgan coat.  Probably as much of an influence on the impressionable boy from Crieff as the most wacky of showbiz tales. He has no qualms about discussing McGregor's talent, which is carefully managed by the young actor's mother - and Lawson's sister - Carol McGregor.  In fact, he says he remembers the moment he realised his nephew was going to be famous.  "He was playing Orlando in As You Like It in his second year at drama college," recalls Lawson.  "And he was extraordinary.  He was on a completely different level from everybody else.  But I couldn't say at the time because it was too much.  I couldn't say to him, 'You know you're going to be a huge star.'  I couldn't even say to my sister.  It was just silly.  But what surprised me was how fast it happened.  That was fantastic." Continued on page 2