Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I do full-frontal nudity & people are giggling like schoolchildren but it isn’t even talked about if a woman does it
a big mirror up to us and say, ‘why? What’s going on, guys?’”
The film’s director David Mackenzie, the brother of Monarch of the Glen’s Alastair Mackenzie, who also appears in Outlaw King as Lord Atholl, is equally baffled by the furore.
“This is the fifth film where I’ve had full-frontal male nudity,” he says. “No one’s ever had such a fuss about it.
“And it’s far less than I’ve ever had before, and it’s totally motivated. The guy is washing himself in a loch in the Highlands and just pops out – I don’t know what the fuss is about.
“It says something about our times and I wish people would get over it.”
Pine is best known as the male love interest in Wonder Woman and for going where no man had gone before and following William Shatner as James T Kirk in the rebooted Star Trek movies.
Acting is in his blood, as he’s the son of actor Robert Pine – best known here for appearing in 1980s US motorcycle cop drama CHIPS – and actress turned psychotherapist Gwynne Gilford.
The new film actually marks a reunion for Pine and Scottish director Mackenzie, who first worked together on 2016’s Hell or High Water.
“I’d had such a wonderful experience working with him last time,” Pine says. “It was the fact that it was swords and horses and mud – and that appealed to my eightyear-old self.
“And it was the fact that it was a big-budget herojourney kind of David and Goliath story, but through the lens of David’s eye, which made it incredibly interesting to me.
“I think what I liked about Robert the Bruce is that he was not William Wallace, he wasn’t served on a platter in terms of his heroism.
“He was a man complicated by his own weaknesses and simultaneously strong and vulnerable, and Machiavellian and selfless, and all these great things that I felt made him tremendously human.”
Indeed, the film shows Robert rallying an impassioned group of men to fight back against the huge English army and provided a history lesson for Pine.
“I didn’t know anything at first, but here was a story about a man who came from incredible wealth and privilege, and then decided to risk essentially all of it for a bigger ideal. There are certain parallels to what’s happening in the world right now. But I think that story is always an interesting one to tell.”
But playing a person who looms so large in the history of Scotland was not without its challenges for the American.
And despite recent claims Robert the Bruce was born in Essex, Pine plays the role with a strong – and decent – Scottish accent. He says: “Obviously, I had reservations. I’d done accents before and been absolutely crucified for them.
“And if there was one time where it would really go down, it would be this one. But the great thing about having been crucified before, is that it can’t get any worse – so I figured I’d go for it. I am not a method actor, but I would keep up the accent in the pub after filming.”
Outlaw King is released in UK cinemas and on Netflix on Friday.