‘Begbie’s a madman but, 20 years on, I’ve grown fond of him.’
IT’S the film fans have waited two decades to see.
And Robert Carlyle, one of the stars of T2 Trainspotting, has told iN10 how a restaurant rendezvous provided a vital bit of buddy bonding.
It saw him reunited with Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller and Ewen Bremner who, like him, were propelled to stardom by the iconic original movie back in 1996.
“We went out for a meal in the week before the filming,” reveals Robert, 55, as the stars get set for tonight’s big premiere in Edinburgh.
“Ewan and myself hadn’t seen each other in about 15 years. Jonny was about the same, while Ewen B. I’d seen a bit.
“We were smiling at each other and thinking: ‘How did all these years go by? How have we not been in touch?’
“And we were looking at each other’s faces. I’m sure the boys were doing the exact same thing as me – looking to see how much we’d aged. How much grey hair or nae hair we had!
“It was like long-lost friendships, very warm and cosy.
“It was a lovely experience that continued all the way through the film.
“We got really close during the first film, but even closer during this one.”
Danny Boyle is directing again with Ewan back as Rent Boy, Jonny as Sick Boy and Ewen as Spud.
Robert is, of course, much-feared Begbie, the on-screen nutter to rival them all.
The sequel has taken what seems like forever to bring to the screen. And had it been much earlier it wouldn’t have held an appeal for the Glasgow-born star who has played everything from loveable Hamish Macbeth to a memorable Bond villain.
He can’t help but smile as he admits Begbie is adored by fans despite having “almost no redeeming features whatsoever – a madman”.
He confides: “For the first few years I deliberately didn’t want to speak about him too much.
“I didn’t want this to be a rod for my back, for people to think: ‘This is what this guy does, these psycho-type parts’.
“Then I began to warm to him until this point in my life, 20 years later, I’m very fond of the character. I’m very grateful.
“More good has come out of it than bad, that’s for sure.”
His T2 incarnation might be the guy whose pint you’d least like to spill, but Robert couldn’t be more different.
He’s affable, open and down-to-earth. Having caught up with him in interviews on and off for the best part of the post-Trainspotting 20-or-so years, he’s a Hollywood name who’s about as un-Hollywood as they come.
For nine months of the year life for Robert, wife Anastasia and their three kids Ava, 14, Harvey, 12, and Pearce, 10, is in Vancouver.
It’s the filming base for his big US TV fairy tale series Once Upon A Time and before that he was there for a couple of years with sci-fi blockbuster Stargate Universe.
But Scotland runs through his veins, and those of the kids, too. “They’re very much Scottish,” he insists. “Ava’s like a wee chameleon and her voice changes when she goes over there. She doesn’t go completely Canadian, but there are wee things in her voice that make you go: ‘ Who are you?’ The boys slag her off.
“Pearce is amazing. At 10 he’s been out there nine months of the year for the past eight years, so if anybody has a right to change his voice it should be him. But he’s more Scottish than me.”
It’s not California-style sunshine that keeps Robert on the other side of the Atlantic.
“Vancouver is a lovely city, although I never thought I’d find anywhere that rained more than Glasgow,” he says.
“In October it rained 29 days out of 31 and in November it rained 27 days out of 30. So there’s no real glamour.”
But, come on, there must be a bit of A-list diva-ness somewhere?
“Anybody that knows me – and you know me a bit – knows nothing could be further from the truth,” he laughs.
“There’s no starriness in my life ever and there never will be. The one thing I really miss out in Vancouver is that there are no jokes.
“You’ll walk a long way before you find
It’s dangerous to do as the first film was so loved.