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Carlyle grew up in Glasgow and always admired the Sean Connery Bond, "because finally there was somebody up on the screen who talked like me," Carlyle says in his thick burr.
Another bonus? His Bond baddie is a baldy, just like his favourite Bond bad guy, Blofeld, as defined by Donald Pleasence. "Yes," says Carlyle smiling, "there's a wee homage there."
The spy adventure part is in sharp contrast to his grim role as the drunken father in Angela's Ashes. The Pulitizer Prize- winning Frank McCourt memoir-turned-movie will be released wide in January, but get an L.A. release in December in order to qualify for Oscar nominations.
"The two movies are as different as chalk and cheese," says Carlyle, who adds that he isn't sure whether he'd do another Bond feature.
"I was going to say 'Never say never again' ", he says, repeating the title of a Bond movie. Go ahead, he's told, that's clever. "I think I will, then."