In a life, there are sometimes situations where one changes careers. This was also thought by the footballer Vinnie Jones, who dedicated himself to acting during his sports career and is still active today.
Who is Vinnie Jones?
- He played football in the English professional league from 1984 to 1999
- For the most part of his career, he played for Wimbledon FC, also spending 2 seasons at Chelsea FC
- In his first film, he appeared in 1998, in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels by Guy Ritchie
- Due to his hard approach, he earned the nickname
The Axe
, which translates toDie Axt
On the field, he was a brute who made a name for himself especially through physicality. To this day, he is said to hold the record for the fastest yellow card in history, as eurosport.com reports. He is said to have received one after just 5 seconds.
You can see his most recent appearance in the Netflix series The Gentlemen:
Michael Caine inspired Jones
How did Vinnie Jones get into acting? The first film that Vinnie Jones acted in was 1998’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. As Belfast Telegraph reported in 2020, Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins approached him and told him that he had an acting career ahead of him. They are said to have praised his presence on screen.
And they said, you have an enormous screen presence – as soon as you appear on screen, you just take control, no matter who is with you on screen.
Vinnie Jones on a meeting with Caine and Hoskins (Source: Belfast Telegraph)
Jones describes even his first role in this interview as a complete coincidence
. Matthew Vaughn and Guy Ritchie allegedly approached him and offered him a cameo role in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Guy Ritchie and Vinnie Jones
How did his career progress? Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is not only the first film that Vinnie Jones starred in, but also the first film by director Guy Ritchie. The collaboration was not a one-time experience. 2 years later, after the Nicolas Cage film Gone in 60 Seconds, he appeared again in a film by Guy Ritchie.
In Snatch, he played his probably most iconic role as Bullet-Tooth
Tony. Similar to football, he plays a tough guy here, who everyone is afraid of and who shows presence with his considerable physique.
After that, he appeared in unknown and rather bad films until he played in a big franchise in 2006. In X-Men: The Last Stand, fitting to his stature, he portrayed the villain Juggernaut. Again, suiting his football reputation. Unlike someone like Dave Bautista, he didn’t try out in different roles but remained the hard guy.
However, the massive success eluded Jones. Many of his films have been more like direct-to-DVD material. Apart from films, he also played smaller roles in series, for example in Galavant or in Arrow.
For The Gentlemen, a Netflix series by Guy Ritchie based on the film, he was able to work with his esteemed colleague again. In a Radio Times interview, he had nothing but good things to say about Ritchie.
He talks about how a single meeting with Guy Ritchie changed his life. In the interview, he also repeatedly refers to him as brother
. Perhaps Vinnie Jones is not an incredibly good actor, yet he still manages to show presence, whether in the role of the brute he had on the football field. After The Gentlemen, Guy Ritchie returns to another film in series form: After 13 years, Guy Ritchie continues with Sherlock Holmes, but this time without Robert Downey Jr.
