Andy Gotts: The man who gets behind the mask

We’re used to seeing Hollywood’s famous faces at their carefully-managed best.

But celebrity snapper Andy Gotts specialises in showing stars without the glamour or the legions of stylists. And they love him for his warts-and-all style.

Now the 41-year-old ’s work and career is being celebrated in an exhibition, called Behind the Mask, at Manchester’s Lowry art gallery, for BAFTA. It wasn’t exactly the stars of the big screen who set Andy on the road to photography fame, however.

“It was an old children’s TV show, called In At The Deep End,” he said. “They would do different jobs each week, and one week they were press photographers. They were driving around trying to get photographs of Lady Diana Spencer, who was rumoured to be getting engaged to Prince Charles.”

Andy took up photography, eventually going to study it at university.

“Stephen Fry came to the university to present some awards and give a talk. I stuck my hand up and asked to photograph him, and he kindly said yes. You know when people say they feel a revelation is like being struck by lightning? It was like that. I knew I wanted to take portraits.”

Andy created a portfolio of celebrities by photographing one and asking them to nominate a friend next. Since then he has gone from strength to strength his work has featured in Vogue, Vanity Fair … and now, The Sunday Post! Here he tells us about some of his most memorable portraits.

Robert De Niro: Robert makes his friends call him Bob. He’s a softly-spoken man and very friendly. He ended up doing an impression of himself in Taxi Driver.

John Cleese: I was actually the official photographer for the Monty Python reunion. For this particular shoot, John wanted to do expressions of different fish. This expression was a pike!

George Clooney: I went to his home in Lake Como to picture him. He has these pet ducks roaming around his living room. George stepped out for a second and I accidentally kicked over a book which knocked one of his ducks unconscious. I panicked and hid it behind the sofa, thankfully it was OK!

Julia Roberts: She was a very maternal figure, but also quite ditzy. It was like a cross between Erin Brockovich and Pretty Woman. “Are you warm enough? Can I get you some food?” She was lovely.

Tony Curtis: Tony phoned me when he was very ill and said: “Make me look like an icon one more time.” I felt under a lot of pressure. I knew he was nicknamed The American Prince so, I turned up at his house with actor’s greasepaint and painted a flag on his face. He collapsed a few days later and before he died his wife showed him the picture I’d taken. I’m proud to say he loved the shots.

Robin Williams: It was a challenge to calm Robin down, he was looning around so much.

Paul Newman: I got complaints from Paul Newman fans after the picture was printed following his death. They wondered how I could show him looking so old, with liver spots. But that’s how he really looked.

Al Pacino: I don’t believe in touching up photographs. I want people to look at a picture and think the subject looked the way they did, on that day.

Scarlett Johansson: I don’t ask my subjects to wear a lot of make-up just what they would wear for a night out. I gave Scarlett, who had been working all day, two glasses of champagne before our shoot which she downed!

Keira Knightley: Keira was 19 when I photographed her, she was absolutely flawless.

She’s not my ideal subject though my perfect model is an older man whose life you can see in their face.

Behind the Mask runs at The Lowry until January 11