The Duke of Edinburgh made an unexpected visit to the set of Hatton Garden heist film King Of Thieves, stars Paul Whitehouse and Ray Winstone have revealed.
The movie also stars Sir Michael Caine, Sir Tom Courtenay, Sir Michael Gambon and Jim Broadbent as the thieves who pulled off what is believed to be the biggest burglary in British legal history.
The group stole jewellery and valuables worth an estimated £14 million by boring a hole into the wall of a vault in London’s jewellery quarter, before ransacking 73 safety deposit boxes in 2015.
Appearing on The Jonathan Ross Show, Whitehouse said: “Prince Philip came to visit us on set one day. We were filming in Windsor.”
His co-star Ray Winstone added: “He pulled up in a car and the window went down on the Range Rover and he said ‘What are you doing?’
“I said, ‘We’re making a film, Sir’. I said, ‘Yes, with Sir Tom Courtenay and Sir Michael Caine, would you like to meet them?’ And he went, ‘No’.”
Winstone is playing his childhood friend Daniel Jones in the film and said he visited him in prison to get his blessing.
He said: “I went to school with him. I sat next to him at school. We actually sat next to one another at school.
“I wanted to go and visit him before we did the film, not to find out anything about him because I knew about him. But out of respect really, to let him know I was playing him and find out how he felt about me playing him.
“Physically, we are not the same. He’s a very fit boy. I went to visit him a couple of times.”
He added: “I think Dan had a really tough life at home, a tough upbringing. I was very lucky, I had a great home life as a kid and it just wasn’t in me.
“Some things are in you, some things aren’t … When you grow up around people that you know have been criminals or been brutes in their life.
“I’ve seen that firsthand and I chose to take that to the screen.”
Asked whether he is anything like the tough characters he plays in real life, Winstone added: “My wife said to me years ago, I think it’s a shyness. Something you learn through boxing, when you walk into a room and you’re quite shy, you put on a persona in the way you hold yourself so you can walk in a room for the first time.
“And you get used to that in the end … Over the years I’ve learnt hopefully not to (come across as aggressive).”
King Of Thieves is released in UK cinemas on September 14.
The Jonathan Ross Show returns to ITV on September 8 at 9.45pm.
