Twin spotting
Director Danny Boyle tracks down girls he picked to play movie tot
When Danny Boyle got in touch with twins Lauren and Devon Lamb, he wanted to make sure they had not become drug addicts.
That’s because the identical twins, now aged 22, shared the role of tragic baby Dawn in Trainspotting, shooting scenes alongside Ewan McGregor, Kevin McKidd, Ewen Bremner and their on-screen dad Jonny Lee Miller.
Now, 21 years later, they have revealed how they made it into T2 after the Oscar-winning director tracked them down.
Lauren said: “I think we had just turned one when we shot the scenes for Trainspotting so, sadly, we don’t remember a thing.
“There is a picture of us being held by four of the main stars. My mum says Ewan McGregor was just about to become a dad and was great with us on set.
“We weren’t on the set a lot but, when we were, apparently everyone was a bit more relaxed and all doing baby stuff with us. So it helped to take away a lot of the tension from filming such hard scenes.
“It’s crazy when we look back now and think that was us with all those famous actors.
“I often joke with my mum that I can say Jonny Lee Miller was my dad but she can’t say he was her husband.”
In one of the most harrowing scenes of the film, baby Dawn dies as a result of her drug-addict parents’ neglect.
Lauren and Devon, from Hami l t on , g rew up knowing they had been in Trainspotting and were six years old when their mum first let them watch her own heavily edited version of the hugely successful movie.
Lauren said: “I don’t know how we got the part in the original Trainspotting film but my dad arranged it.
“They weren’t looking for twins but Danny Boyle is a twin himself so he picked us.
“When we were growing up, mum let us watch some of the film but she didn’t let us watch any of the drug-related bits – only a few shots of us that were good bits, like us rolling over in the flat, and definitely not when baby Dawn died.
“I thought the film was great and I remember going to school and telling all the other kids they should watch it. I can only imagine what their parents must have thought.”
Lauren was 15 when she remembers first watching the whole movie from start to finish.
She said: “I think Devon watched it long before me – but I’m not good with needles or anything gory like that.
“I probably watched most of it from behind a cushion and there were lots of bits I couldn’t watch.
“It’s a brilliant film but hard to watch, not because I look at baby Dawn dying and think, ‘That’s me,’ but because it’s just a hard film to watch for anyone – it’s so graphic.”
The sisters were shocked when Devon received an email inviting them to the premiere of T2 in January this year.
Boyle later joked he had been keen to track them down to make sure they were both well and hadn’t “turned into a drug addict or killed someone”.
The twins had no idea shots of them filmed for the first movie would also be used in T2. Lauren said: “We didn’t know we were going to be in the second film too – they used f lashbacks of us – until we were at the premiere and watching the film.
“We were joking with each other that our names might come up in the credits and they did. Our names hadn’t been in the credits of the first film so it was a surprise.
“We phoned our mum as soon as the film was over.”
Lauren and Devon were invited to the star- studded party after the premiere, where they met Kelly Macdonald, Ewen and Jonny. Lauren said: “Ewan McGregor didn’t come to the after-party but there were lots of other famous people there.
“Danny Boyle was lovely and was so taken aback to meet us as adults. He kept saying, ‘ I can’t believe it.’
“We did introduce ourselves to people as, ‘ We’re Dawn – the dead baby.’
“Because we had been so young during the first film, we hadn’t spoken to any of the cast before. They knew us but we didn’t remember them.
“Jonny Lee Miller – our dad – was really shocked to meet