![\"Jeremy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_3B8YNXC.jpg\")
Jeremy McWilliams(Image: \u00a9 Thurman James\/CSM via ZUMA Press Wire)<\/p>\nThe three-time North West 200 Supertwins race winner thought his friends were winding him upJeremy McWilliams(Image: \u00a9 Thurman James\/CSM via ZUMA Press Wire)<\/p>\n
Northern Ireland motorcycle racing legend Jeremy McWilliams thought he was the victim of a wind up when he was approached to appear in a film alongside a Hollywood superstar.<\/p>\n
The 61-year-old former MotoGP rider, a three-time North West 200 <\/a>Supertwins race winner, starred in the 2013 movie Under the Skin alongside Scarlett Johansson. But the opportunity came as a shock to the Ulsterman.<\/p>\n He was offered the chance by Steve Keys – one half of TV\u2019s<\/a> The Easy Riders alongside Red Dwarf star Danny John-Jules. And the motorcycle entrepreneur from Sussex has revealed the Glengormley<\/a> racer dished out a couple of four-letter expletives such was his disbelief about being offered the chance to line up alongside the big-name actress.<\/p>\n READ MORE: North West 200 announces 2026 race week schedule with thrilling line-up in May<\/a>READ MORE: Former North West 200 winner Lee Johnston opens up on road racing future<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThey said we need someone that is going to ride really fast and that when he turns up somewhere he\u2019s a scary-looking bloke,\u201d Keys told the Full Chat podcast<\/a> before joking that riders James Toseland and Neil Hodgson had been deemed \u201ctoo good looking\u201d for the role.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone that knows Jeremy knows that he\u2019s exactly the opposite. He\u2019s one of the nicest blokes you\u2019ll ever meet. But when he puts his race face on, he\u2019s going to scare the bejesus out of anyone that\u2019s coming towards him, which is what they wanted. So I sent a picture in of him looking moody, sat on a chair in the garage at some race and the minute the director saw it he went: \u2018That\u2019s my man\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI asked the director if he wanted to speak to Jeremy and he said \u2018no, not really\u2019. Basically I could go straight to offer and he said, \u2018yeah just go and offer him the part\u2019. I didn\u2019t really know Jeremy that well and I called him and said \u201cit\u2019s Steve Keys here\u201d and he said: \u201cWho? Who\u2019s Steve Keys?\u201d I explained and I thought \u2018he still doesn\u2019t remember who I am\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyway, I said \u2018I\u2019ve got you a part in a film with Scarlett Johansson\u2019 and you can imagine him going \u2018f*** off\u2019, who the f*** is this?\u2019 He did not believe it. He thought it was one of his mate\u2019s winding him up.<\/p>\n “It took half-an-hour to convince him that this was a serious thing. I said: \u2018All you\u2019ve got to do is speak to the director and show him what you look like in a pair of leathers. It sounds weird but he\u2019ll want you to walk round the corner and look into the camera. Just get whoever to film it on a phone\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cHe did that, sent it to me and said: \u2018I just feel like a complete idiot\u2019. I sent it in, that was it, he got the role so he ended up doing about two weeks\u2019 worth of filming with Scarlett up in Scotland.\u201d<\/p>\n The topic came up during Keys\u2019 appearance on the motorcycle podcast<\/a> that is co-hosted by retired Team GB athlete Iwan Thomas and ex-professional footballer David Prutton. It led to the Olympian telling his own amusing tale about meeting the award-winning American during a press interview for one of the Captain America films she starred in.<\/p>\n \u201cYou sit down at these press junkets and you only get two minutes with the superstar,\u201d Thomas added during the episode<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s sat down, he\u2019s (Chris Evans) sat down, I was chatting to her and I thought, being a bit younger and a bit naive, she was flirting with me. She went: \u2018Ooh, I like your ink\u2019 and I went \u2018Oooh really, this tattoo is from this\u2019 and she goes \u2018Oh you work out?\u2019 and I went: \u2018Yeah, I used to be an athlete.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m chatting away and behind her, out of vision, the agent\u2019s gone to me (giving cut sign) \u2018you\u2019ve had your two minutes\u2019. They stopped and I said \u2018What do you mean I\u2019ve had my two minutes?\u2019.<\/p>\n “They said: \u2018It starts from the moment she sits in that chair\u2019. And I went \u2018I haven\u2019t even asked her a question!\u2019 I went back to BT Sport and they said: \u2018What did she say about the bike?\u2019 and I went: \u2018Nothing, but she liked my tattoos! I had to tell them I\u2019d got nothing from her!\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up to our free sports newsletter<\/a> to get the latest headlines to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The three-time North West 200 Supertwins race winner thought his friends were winding him upJeremy McWilliams(Image: \u00a9 Thurman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,90718,105216,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-252731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-glengormley","11":"tag-north-west-200","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Retired](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_Iwan-Thomas-1.png\")
The podcast is co-hosted by retired Team GB athlete Iwan Thomas<\/p>\n