Our man in Panama
Siobhan Synnot profiles the life of Robert the Bruce wannabe Angus Macfadyen, a Scottish actor who late in life has achieved notoriety for his incendiary pro-independence tweets from his beachfront home in Central America
OUR MAN IN PANAMA
Siobhan Synnot profiles Robert the Bruce actor Angus Macfadyen
In the rich tapestry of Scotland’s history, Robert the Bruce stands out as one of its most popular figures, celebrated in verse, song and school trips to Bannockburn, and with an iron grip on public imagination as the King of Scots who crushed Edward’s army with 8,000 troops and sent him homeward to think again.
So what if the Bruce was driven by a nobleman’s desire for power, rather than a nation’s yearning for independence? Or that, as a Norman born near Chelmsford, the real King Robert was as Scottish as jellied eels? When Mel Gibson decided to recount Scotland’s wars of independence, he chose to shoot stirring legend over less colourful historical fact in a blockbuster that depicted woad several centuries too late, tartan several centuries too early, and an oppressed nation led to freedom by a man with dazzling blue eyes, a dreadlock wig and excellent biceps.
And when it came to casting Robert the Bruce, the Australian chose a darkly handsome young Scot called Angus Macfadyen to reinforce the romance of the Bruce in Braveheart despite the fact that Panama-domiciled Macfadyen’s only period living in Scotland seems to have been while as a student in Edinburgh. Still, Scotland has undeniably been good to Macfadyen. ‘I tell friends that Braveheart saved my life,’ he has said, ‘because it did. Until now, it’s been the defining moment of my life.’
Originally, however, Macfadyen had been lined up to play the weak King Edward II, but after reading the script, he was determined to bid for Bruce, even though it was already earmarked for another, bigger name actor. Before their first meeting in a London hotel, Macfadyen drew courage from a couple of bottles of red wine, then went in to make his pitch.
‘I told him I found Edward II a dull character – but I was excited and inflamed by the part of Bruce. Mel didn’t ask me to read anything, he just sat and listened. I think he cast me on my desire to play Robert the Bruce and the passion I showed.’
However he happily admits that he had been amazed at how well the movie was received, and its effect on Scottish audiences in particular. ‘Braveheart did something the SNP could not – it got people out to vote, and as a great supporter of Scottish independence, I hope my film is good enough to ignite the passion in people to reach for the stars.’
Twenty-four years since Braveheart, Macfadyen has returned to the warrior king with a new film, Robert the Bruce, which
is produced, co-written and starring Macfadyen. Yet despite Braveheart’s box office success and five Oscars, Macfadyen struggled to get any sort of sequel off the ground in Hollywood. Initially he envisaged an epic every bit as sprawling as Gibson’s opus, with a drama that crossed continents and combined Bruce’s pursuit of the Scottish crown with stories of Knights Templar and the Vatican’s move from Rome to Avignon.
‘It was one of those big Hollywood blockbustertype scripts that would have cost £60 million and needed Sean Connery,’ admits Macfayden. ‘And looking back, the script wasn’t that good either.’
Forced to cut costs, his final version strimmed the story down to a leaner drama about a wounded Bruce forced to hide out in the Highlands in the freezing winter of 1306. He is on the verge of giving up his fight until a family of plucky crofters and an encounter with a spider inspire him to try, try again.
The story behind the film is also one of persistence. It took 13 years to get the script in front of a camera, and just before Australian director Richard Findlay called ‘action’, Netflix announced an upcoming period picture called Outlaw King with a big budget and Hollywood A-lister Chris Pine playing the Bruce.
However, instead of packing up and going home, Macfadyen decided this was a positive sign of a surge of interest in Scotland’s turbulent 13th-century history. ‘If there’s one film,’ he reasoned, ‘there can be two.’
David Mackenzie’s Outlaw King was shot entirely in Scotland, a luxury Macfadyen says he could not afford. Instead the Highlands of Scotland were shot in the mountains of Montana, although the production did manage to squeeze in a week in Scotland to shoot around Eilean Donan castle, Skye, Glencoe and Stirling, where they got trapped by the Beast From The East, the notorious arctic blast in February 2018 which put most of Scotland in a deep freeze. It was the first time Macfadyen had filmed in Scotland since 1993, when he starred in a BBC Scotland series called Taking Over The Asylum with future Doctor Who, David Tennant.
Born in Edinburgh, Angus Macfadyen spent the first 20 years of his life as far from Scotland as geographically possible. His father’s job as a doctor for the World Health Organization involved travel to the Far East, Africa, Europe and America. When the family lived in Kenya, Angus started showing signs of interest in acting. ‘I’m told I spent a few years running around with no clothes, thinking I was Tarzan.’ This rootless lifestyle also removed any inclination to settle for a steady, nine-to-five existence. At first, he considered becoming a diplomat, and applied to Edinburgh University to study International Relations, as well as English and French. However, two weeks into his studies, the university theatre group changed everything. He dropped his diplomacy course and theatre became the focal point of his six years in the capital. Over five years of Fringe festivals he appeared in 35 plays at The Bedlam Theatre, and formed a stand-up comedy trio called The Thunderbunnies with Monarch of the Glen star
‘I’m told I spent a few years running around with no clothes, thinking I was Tarzan.’