Edinburgh, Feb 17 : Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane has amassed a massive fortune playing the gigantic kind-hearted gamekeeper of Hogwarts, Rubius Hagrid in the Harry Potter franchise. So in a curious case of similarity with one’s character, in spite of his multi-million dollar fortune, the actor lives in a small and remote house in the Scottish highlands much like the small hut of Hagrid.
While Coltrane’s Harry Potter co-stars have huge assets in property and have invested wisely round the world, the Scottish star, now 71, has been living in the same rented barn conversion in the hills west of industrial Glasgow at a tiny cost of just £1,000 (1350 US Dollars) a month for the past two decades, essentially cutting off all contact from civilization and is now living like a hermit.
The actor’s concerned landlord, the aristocratic landowner who rented Coltrane the house, has spoken out to say that since his last appearance as Hagrid ten years ago Coltrane has gradually withdrawn from public life and practically disappeared, barely never leaving his house. Friends and neighbours and those who have occasionally spotted Coltrane have put together a sad picture of the actor who has now become a virtual prisoner in his own home, suffering from osteoarthritis so painful in his hips that he has been wheelchair bound for some five years.
At his highlands house, which is reachable by just a steep and winding, one-track road, Coltrane has quite literally been marooned from civilization in his remote barn. His closest neighbour and landlord, aristocrat Andrew Edmonstone, aged 50, who is the cousin of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and the son of Sir Archibald Edmonstone, the seventh baronet of Dunreath, says he has not physically seen Coltrane in over four years. Furthermore, according to him neither, have his other tenants got more than a fleeting glance of him on his doorstep, despite him living full-time in the house.
His residence has turned into a subject of rumours and telltales, according to entertainment website OK!. Edmonstone, heir to the surrounding 20,000 acre estate, said: “Reclusive is definitely the word I would use to describe Robbie. He is our neighbour and in fact his barn is on the closest of our 11 farms to us here. But there is no neighbourliness coming from him — not for years. Many years ago we would see him for private dinners. But that has stopped now.” “I have not seen him since a private dinner about five years ago or maybe more. It is what it is. You can take a horse to water as they say. He just does not want to be part of things in the community any longer. He has completely shrunken away from things. It’s very sad.”
“Unfortunately he is not the most charitable person at all either. Every time we host a charity event, we invite him. His name is always on the list but the answer always comes back as a no. He really does not want to be part of the community at all. As a person he is about as far from the generous-spirited Harry Potter character Hagrid as you could possibly imagine.” Edmonstone went on: “I range the West Highland Way every day for eight months of the year. This runs right past the road which eventually leads to Robbie’s house. I have not seen him in many many years. Not in his cars. Not walking. Not at any dinners. Indeed none of our tenants and neighbours on the entire estate have said they have seen him either in a very long while.”
With UNI Inputs
