Exclusive Sunday Mercury interview with Pirates of The Caribbean star

Jan 10 2009 By Roz Laws

AFTER a decade together and three engagement rings, the scene was finally set for a romantic wedding in the Bahamas.

The venue was booked and it looked like actors Kevin McNally and Phyllis Logan were really going to get married this time.

Then Hurricane Wilma hit and Kevin had to be evacuated, along with the rest of the cast of Pirates Of The Caribbean.

So will Kevin – who next weekend plays an evil half-man, half-rat in the ITV1 drama Demons – EVER tie the knot with his long-term partner?

“Occasionally we get drunk and say ‘we must get married!’,” laughs Kevin, who was brought up in Hay Mills and Stechford, Birmingham.

“I suggested going to Las Vegas this year, but Phyllis says it’s too tacky!

“When we first got together 14 years ago, I asked her to marry me and bought her a diamond ring. We sat down to plan the wedding but it soon got out of hand. I have eight relatives but she has 80, so we thought we’d have to hire Westminster Abbey.

“A few years went by, then I proposed again and bought her another ring. We set a date, then work got in the way and we never managed it.

“The closest we came was when I was making Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest in the Bahamas in 2005. I was in a hotel that had a wedding planner and we arranged it all. But Hurricane Wilma put paid to our plans. At least I got a refund!”

Kevin, who has two children with former Lovejoy star Phyllis, is used to mixing with Hollywood stars. Recently he’s also been out for dinner with Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their daughter Suri while making the film Valkyrie, out later this month.

Kevin plays Dr Carl Goerdeler, a co-conspirator with Tom’s character of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler.

But first, in Saturday’s episode of Demons, Kevin plays Mr Tibbs, the rodent-like