CARYLYLE'S PSYCHO ANALYSIS; Robert's a chill a minute in our great giveaway Don't miss your FREE copy of the best ever Cracker only in tomorrow's Record.

Robert Carlyle has made a career out of playing psychos - but his first and most memorable one was Albie in Cracker. Tomorrow, the Record gives away the feature-length episode, To Be A Somebody. Here, RICK FULTON charts Carlyle's most chilling roles

ALBIE KINSELLA

CRACKER

UP until Cracker's To Be A Somebody in 1994, Robert was more of an art house favourite in films such as Riff-Riff and as a man of the cloth's gay love interest in Priest.

He'd also made his obligatory appearance for a Scottish actor in Taggart.

But his unhinged performance as Albie Kinsella in Cracker made him an overnight star and began his run in psycho roles.

Robert's deranged murderer is made more chilling by the chant "L-I-V-E-R-P-Double-O L Liverpool FC".

Robert reportedly spent three months speaking Scouse for the part and has admitted: "I must have been dreaming about Albie. I spoke in a Liverpool accent all the time." And while for Carlyle and Cracker fans, Albie is the character that brought a run in psychos, for Robert it's where he met his wife, Anastasia.

She's now the mother of his three young children.

He said: "We met on Cracker. I played a maniac fan who murders a policeman and she did my make-up.

"I thought anyone interested in me looking like that must have genuinely liked me."

The psychos that followed included Begbie in Trainspotting, Jo Jo McCann in Looking After Jo Jo, Bond baddie Renard in The World Is Not Enough, Daffy in The Beach and that psychos of all psychos, Adolf Hitler.

PSYCHO RATING *****

FRANCIS BEGBIE

TRAINSPOTTING

PLAYING deranged Begbie in Trainspotting made Robert famous.

Begbie was a powderkeg - who could explode anytime and was always up for a square go.

He lives for fighting ' and hurting people - the, character Renton explains in the film that "Begbie didn't do drugs, he did people".

These include the innocent bystander who opens a packet of crisps while he's playing pool, the American I tourist using the wrong pub toilet and the scene in the London pub when, after someone spills his pint, he unleashes his fury with manic evil glee.

PSYCHO RATING ****

JO JO McCANN

LOOKING AFTER JO JO

AFTER Trainspotting, he starred as TV cop Hamish Macbeth, in the movie Carla's Song and in The Full Monty.

Roebrt was back to his deranged best in Looking After Jo Jo.

His drug-dealing character is paranoid about why his dad died when he was young, dresses up in a giant rabbit costume and lays into enemies with a razor.

PSYCHO RATING ***

RENARD

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH

VICTOR "Renard" Zokas was James Bond's 119th baddie, and perhaps not a highlight of Robert's career.

On paper, the character of Renard is great - a villain with near-superhero powers who, because he has a bullet lodged in his brain which has damaged nerves, leaves him impervious to pain and makes him stronger each day.

While you'd think he could be a real supervillain, the idea never really gelled on the screen.

It's Renard who gets whipped and who becomes the whipping boy of his girlfriend.

PSYCHO RATING **

ADOLF HITLER

THE RISE AND FALL OF EVIL

CARLYLE'S first attempt at playing a re al-life psychopath.

But he produced a masterclass as the deluded dictator Adolf Hi tler.

The wee Scot from Maryhill even looks like the Nazi leader.

It's an extreme role (perhaps the most extreme role any actor could choose) and caused out-rage among Jewish communities when it was revealed he would play Hitler.

But this four-hour series for American television wasn't sugar-coated.

The man who ordered the deaths of millions of Jews is brought to life by Robert.

Taking the role also caused him problems at home.

He revealed the moustache and the swept-back hair was "not the most attractive costume to be in when you haven't seen your wife for months".

PSYCHO RATING ***

DAFFY

THE BEACH

PLAYING up to his character's name, Robert gives a suitably daffy, over-the-top manic performance at the start of this film, which used Thai locations.

Te aming up with Trainspotting director Danny Boyle, Robert added some suitably gritty nasti-ness in a film that is more style than sub stance.

Daffy stays in the next room to new American traveller Richard (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his first post-Titanic part).

Over-the-top, wild-eyed and with a skinhead, Robert's Daffy tells Richard all about an island paradise and even gives him a map before slicing open his wrists.

PSYCHO RATING ***

FW COLQUHOUN

RAVENOUS

HIS only foray into a horror movie, rather than someone who happens to be horrific.

He plays a cannibal who set his eyes and teeth on some soldiers living in a win-try outpost during the Mexican-American war in 1847.

With a bushy beard and a red cross on his forehead, he looked like a mixture of Charles Manson and Catweazle.

While there is lots of stomach-churning violence, limb chopping and human meat cooking, there are plenty of sardonic moments.

Like when Colquhoun explains the health benefits to human flesh: "I ate five men in three months. Tuberculosis: vanished."

While Robert's character is a murderer - and a cannibal at that - there is something over the top and unbelievable.

Rather than feeling scared, you might meet someone like him you just enjoy the blood-soaked ride.

PSYCHO RATING ***