Shadow of the stars

From brickie to drama school to a film set in Prague, it's been an extraordinary journey for the aspiring actor Matthew Wilson. Tracey MacLeod reports on a different kind of work experience

Jason Flemyng still remembers the night he met one of his heroes, Stephen Berkoff. A nervous drama student, Flemyng saw the actor/ playwright in a theatre foyer and went up to express his admiration. "Eff off," replied the older man. The encounter left Flemyng determined to be more encouraging to young actors should he be lucky enough to make it.

Fifteen years and more than 30 movie parts later, the 36-year-old star of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is one of Britain's busiest actors, alternating small parts in Hollywood films such as Rob Roy and From Hell with bigger roles in riskier, low-budget features. "There's a premier league for British actors; if Jude and Ewan are Arsenal and Liverpool, I'm West Ham," he says. When his old drama school, Lamda, contacted him to take part in their Shadowing the Stars initiative, a kind of work-experience scheme for student actors, Flemyng not only agreed to take part; he volunteered to pay the student's travel expenses.

Over a week, Shadowing the Stars sent a group of second-years to spend a day watching film and TV actors at work. One girl shadowed Pam St Clement of EastEnders, helping her to go through her lines. Another was squeezed in as an extra on Holby City by the actress Tina Hobley.

But 25-year-old Matthew Wilson has been given the most glamorous assignment: a day-trip to Prague to meet Flemyng, currently filming the part of Dr Jekyll (and, of course, Mr Hyde) in the big-budget sci-fi yarn, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The Prague trip is Wilson's first visit to a film set. He seems perfect casting for a moody DH Lawrence hero, until he unleashes a brilliant, Hollywood-bright smile. He's remarkably well-dressed for a student; the expensive clothes, along with his meaty hands, are the legacy of the six years he worked as a bricklayer after school.

As a chauffeur-driven car takes him to Flemyng's rented apartment, Wilson relishes his first taste of the celebrity lifestyle. "This is mad! My life's just gone whoosh, but in a good way."

When he started at Lamda, the curriculum included tap classes, but years of labour had left him too muscle-bound to move properly. "My mates rip it out of me no end when I go home, about wearing tights and that. I had to go to Covent Garden the other week to buy tap shoes and make-up!" His first love is theatre, and it's on stage that his ambitions lie. He's so dedicated that he usually gets to Lamda's west London premises an hour before classes.

Flemyng is leaning out the window as Wilson's car pulls up, and greets him with a Tiggerish enthusiasm that doesn't flag for the rest of the day. Outside, horse-drawn carriages clop down narrow cobbled streets. Inside, Flemyng's architect-designed apartment is a fast-forward journey into the 21st century, and Wilson's eyes widen as he takes in the state-of-the-art boy toys. "Is that a Chelsea scarf, mate?" Flemyng asks hopefully. "Nah, Blackburn," comes the reply. The getting-acquainted rituals of today's young actors are some way removed from the days of Richardson and Gielgud.

Flemyng has been filming in Prague since May, but shows no sign of being jaded, not even about the hours spent in make-up for his transformation into Hyde. "I've been working 14 years and made 36 films and I still bloody love it. I still run to work every day. I'm so grateful to be doing it."

Wilson's whistle-stop introduction to the world of the working actor begins at the film's production offices, where Flemyng has arranged for some rushes to be screened – not of the film itself, which is shrouded in secrecy – but of his first experiments in the enormous prosthetic suit he wears as Hyde. He watches himself lumbering around on the silent screen, his freckly face protruding from mountainous shoulders, knuckles scraping the floor. It's hard to tell what impresses Wilson most: Flemyng's acting, or the flutter of attractive young production staff.

On the way to the set, Flemyng keeps up a stream of talk, part-advice, part-autobiography. But we're passing through a part of Prague that was damaged by flooding, and Wilson keeps getting distracted by gangs of builders at work. "I miss my old building job every day, to be honest," he says. "The other lads, the sense of achievement; coming home exhausted and dirty at the end of the day."

Flemyng, too, had experience of the real world before Lamda, working in local government for four years. His south London background was the key to getting his first break as Anthony Blunt's Cockney lover in the BBC film A Question of Attribution. "The most important thing you can do in your three years at Lamda is to recognise what you excel at," he tells Wilson. "Notice where you seem to be able to do something the others can't, and concentrate on getting those sorts of parts when you leave. Then you can maximise your chances. I realised when I got out of college that at least for a while I was going to work as a Cockney cheeky chappie, and I did. It can be frustrating to work basically as yourself, but then Michael Caine's done it all his life."

Flemyng walks Wilson around what he says is the most amazing set he's ever been on; a replica of the crumbling back streets of Venice. The lot is deserted: they're currently on night shoots, so the other stars, including Sean Connery, are slumbering in their hotels. Wilson is stunned by the scale of the construction. "From a building point of view, it's astonishing. The amount of hardcore they must have put down." He raps a wall of brickwork. "Aw, it's all bloody polystyrene."

Pointing out his own modest caravan, Flemyng gives Wilson a masterclass in trailer politics, taking him over to Sean Connery's monster, complete with satellite dish, internal staircase and fold-out sides. "That's a Prowler," he says. "That's what you want, mate. The rest of us are in Winnebagos."

They return to the Old Town for a final Staropramen. Wilson, who has spent much of the day listening, relaxes enough to start asking questions; how much rehearsal time do you get; what's the best way to prepare for a screen test; what's the protocol about improvising when you're working with a star? Flemyng tells him that taking small parts in big films can finance the work you really want to do, and offers tips such as sending "nice to meet you" cards to casting directors. Flemyng promises to go to Wilson's graduate show. "He must be hot," Flemyng says. "He got into every drama school he auditioned for. It took me three years to get into Lamda."

On the flight home, Matthew is scribbling in a diary he's been asked to keep by his tutors. "I'm not going to sleep tonight," he says. At first he was puzzled as to why he'd been selected for the Prague trip when his ambitions lie on stage. But Flemyng's enthusiasm for the job has communicated itself. "They're always saying at college that I can do the basics; now I should have more fun," Wilson says. "I don't think it's a coincidence that they put me together with Jason." He was impressed, too, by the fact that Flemyng still seems a normal, down-to-earth bloke.

So has the day convinced Wilson that it would be possible to be an actor and still live a relatively normal life? "If I'd wanted a normal life, I would have stayed a bricklayer," he laughs.