THE RESURRECTION MAN
Stott hails capital’s most famous cop as Rankin’s character hits his 30th anniversary
He’s lighting up the small screen as the newest resident in cult thriller Fortitude.
But Ken Stott has told how he would like to see one of his best-known characters given a makeover for the Netflix generation.
The Edinburgh-born star says he has never felt more comfortable as an actor than when pounding the streets of his home city in his role as maverick detective Rebus.
And as he celebrates the 30th anniversary of the creation of the character, he shares writer Ian Rankin’s wish to see the detective brought back to television in a new format – with up to 20 hours of filming given over to the storylines of just one book – to rival Scandinavianstyle police shows.
Ken, 62, who lives in London, said: “I still go up to Edinburgh often and people say, ‘Any more Rebus?’ all the time.
“We were always under pressure to get a story out and done within an hour and that’s a tall order.
“You fall foul of formulaic principles – it’s always formulas, formulas, all the same, with a happy ending – and we have to do something better than that.
“Filming it over 20 hours – that’s a very good idea.”
Ken admits he struggles to remember what he was doing 30 years ago when a young Rankin, then a student at Edinburgh University, was putting the finishes touches to his f irst offering of his anti- hero cop Detect ive Inspector John Rebus. As the success of Rankin’s crime thrillers grew, a TV series was commissioned, originally starring John Hannah in the title role.
But the fresh- faced star didn’t prove popular with Rebus fans, who knew him as an older, more rugged cop. So when a second outing of the show was commissioned, it was Ken who took over as the lead – despite him initially turning the role down.
He said: “I was asked to do Rebus more than once, post John Hannah’s Rebus.
“I turned it down because I had done The Vice and The Messiah and I felt there were too many cops there – I didn’t want to be typecast.
“But every time I was in Edinburgh, I’d be walking along Princes Street and people would be saying, ‘Hiya, how are you doing? You should be playing Rebus.’
“And then the second time I was asked, I was sort of beaten into submission or, rather, I was wooed into it – and it wasn’t really a difficult decision to make.
“I had made a sort of pathetic stance against playing another policeman but it didn’t work – and I’m delighted about that.”
Ken felt a deep association with the character, something that doesn’t happen often in an actor’s career.
He said: “What was so nice about him was that I could kind of relax and be me but a sort of parallel version.
“I felt I was like him and that appealed to me as, in a sense, I was playing me. Sometimes you just feel at one with a character.
“Recently I did Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge – I was Eddie Carbone – and again I felt at one with that character.
“They are very special moments because you feel as if all the planetary inf luences are right for you to enjoy it and for it to be successful, which in both cases they were.”
Ken, who was born in the Pleasance area of the city before moving to Newington as a boy, says filming in Edinburgh was something else he enjoyed about working on Rebus.
He has shot several movies in the capital, including The Debt Collector with Billy Connolly and One Day with Anne Hathaway.
He also played another police detective in Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave, teaming up on screen with John Hodge, who went on to write the screenplay for Trainspotting and the new T2. But despite working with Boyle, Hodge
When I was filming Rebus, I always felt I was like him. And that was very special
and Ewan McGregor on the film that led them to Trainspotting, Ken admits to no sadness about not being offered a role.
He said: “I’ve not seen T2 Trainspotting yet. Of course I liked the original film – who didn’t like it? No one is allowed not to like it.
“There was no suggestion of me being in it. I was busy working at the time anyway.”
The star, who plays the role of Governor Munk in the new series of Sky hit Fortitude, has not been approached to play any part in the 30th anniversary celebrations being planned to mark the creation of Rebus.
But he is delighted for Rankin to have reached such a landmark with his books.
Ken, who dreamed of being a singer before becombecoming an actor and was once signed to the same management team that went on to form the BBay City Rollers, said: “Ian was just a young man when he wrote the first book.
“He appeared in one of our episodes of Rebus in a blink-and-you-miss-him role.
“We were filming in Chambers Street, in tthe corner across from Greyfriars Bobby, aand he did a wee walk-on.
“We had dinner together but I didn’t pick hhis brains about the character he created.
“When you are playing a character from a book,b unless there are glaring idiosyncrasies thathat should be included, it’s not worthwhile tryintrying to incorporate everything the book tells you about the character because it just compcomplicates matters.
“It’It’s like a rather nicely made sweater – it would probably fall to bits if you pick at it. It’s been an absolute pleasure to play him.”
Ken was delighted to hear Rankin has bought back the TV rights to Rebus and is in negotiations to have a new format of the series made.
But despite his love for the character – and perhaps with his business head on – he refuses to say if he would jump at the chance to play Rebus again.
He added: “Quite frankly, his bringing Rebus back and taking on cold cases was a very good idea, I thought, and that sounds like another series.
“I’m perfectly open to suggestions and I would certainly regard any offer with great interest.”