As an entertainer, Vinnie Jones is quite rare since he managed to build and maintain his public image in a contact sport and then transfer his personality, skills and talents successfully to an entirely different occupation. As any avid follower of football knows, Jones is the uncompromising and fearless midfielder whose name was equated with hard tackling, intimidating opposing players and general commitment to football as an athletic discipline. In the film industry, he proved to be a good example of what one can expect to see when watching films in the gangster, crime comedy or even comic categories. Overall, Vinnie Jones' career is not the biography of the athlete who tried to act after hanging up his boots, but is an example of what one can do with their personality when switching professions.
Football hard man
Vinnie Jones was born in 1965 in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. He started his sports career as a midfielder. However, his image in the field of entertainment was created by the way he played. As a player in his position, he was one of the key representatives of that very specific era of English football. He made the ugly things that usually happen on the pitch seem like part of his official duties. His fans and supporters appreciated that honesty and sincerity despite the fact that rivals did not. Moreover, Jones played for Leeds United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Sheffield United and Luton Town before leaving professional football for acting.
The peak of his football career came in 1988, when Jones won the FA Cup as part of Wimbledon, which became famous thanks to an unexpected triumph. The way he played contributed much to Wimbledon’s identity of that time, and the success fixed Jones' image in football lore forever. However, that is not all that Jones' football career provided him with. In addition to impressive achievements on the pitch, he left his unique mark on the image of the game as the embodiment of the fearless competitor.
From pitch to set
As has already been said, Jones decided to become an actor after quitting professional football. This step may have been logical for Jones for a couple of reasons. First, Vinnie Jones has the features of the face, voice and overall public persona that can easily remind viewers of the football star. Secondly, his experience of playing an intimidating hard man contributes much to his acting career, as Jones knows how to project threats properly and when it is necessary. One of his best works in the film industry is the movie "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". In that movie, Jones played Big Chris and he succeeded in creating an impressive character due to that particular skill of projecting threat. The movie became one of the highlights of Jones' career as a movie actor.
Just two years later, in 2000, Vinnie Jones appeared in another crime film, Snatch. Here he played a ruthless yet witty character, Bullet-Tooth Tony. Just like in the previous movie, this character suited Jones perfectly and became his trademark due to some special quality that this footballer had. In addition, those two films made Vinnie Jones a cult figure in British film-making. After becoming popular in crime comedy, Vinnie Jones starred in a lot of action movies in addition to television work. All of them shared some common feature: in most cases, Jones played gangsters, criminals and intimidating characters, which required the very same qualities as when Jones played football.
Public image and later work
Another reason that explains the success of Vinnie Jones in the film industry is the fact that he managed not to change his public persona when moving to another job and not to hide the way he acts in public from people in order to impress his new fans. In most cases, athletes switch careers and the life of an ordinary person for a completely new identity with a different persona. Jones did not choose this path, and the result proves that he did everything right, as he succeeded in creating his acting career. The combination of menace and bluntness makes it possible for Jones to play not one particular role of gangster or criminal, but also a lot of parts which suit his image but still need some special interpretation due to the peculiarities of Vinnie Jones' persona. Jones played in other action and crime projects as well and was seen in various television performances.
Thus, it is evident that Jones is quite a recognizable figure on television, as his public persona does not change between the time when he is playing in a movie and when he appears on the TV screen in any program and becomes an actor once again.
Why he still stands out
The unique ability of Vinnie Jones to be recognized and to get fans both due to his football career and film acting results from the fact that in the process of switching jobs Vinnie managed to maintain his distinctive personal characteristics. While on the pitch he was feared by rivals because of his fearlessness and commitment to sports activities. While playing roles in films in such categories as gangsters, action films and crime comedy, Vinnie Jones remains recognizable because of those same characteristics.