Choose glamour, Hollywood, fame, Angelina Jolie? I chose High Road
Simon says he has no regrets about missing smash movie
It was the dream role he had to turn down as an aspiring young actor.
But now, 25 years on, Simon Weir is finally set to play Trainspotting anti- hero Sick Boy in its world premiere stage production.
Weir was a massive fan of Irvine Welsh when he auditioned to play Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson in the stage adaptation of Trainspotting in the 90s.
The Glasgow actor had to pull out of the running as his bad boy character Paul Lafferty became a regular in STV soap opera High Road – a role he played for seven years until the show’s last episode in 2003.
Weir has gone on to play several characters created by Welsh. He got to know the Leith-born author and playwright after landing a starring role as Tambo, the flashy Sunday League striker and home wrecker, in the 1998 film adaptation of The Acid House.
He later appeared as Jailhouse in Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting, in which Jonny Lee Miller returned as Sick Boy, and he also featured in the TV series Crime, another adaptation of a novel by Welsh.
Now his career has come ful l circle, with Weir f inal ly set to appear as Sick Boy in the first stage adaptation of Trainspotting sequel Porno at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer.
Weir, 49, said: “I originally auditioned for Sick Boy in Trainspotting in the 1990s. I was in High Road at the time and I couldn’t doo the play because we were filming.
“My character Paul Laf fer ty was getting quite a lot of attention at the time so I didn’t get thee chance to do it.
“It was a bigg disappointment – I was heartbroken at the time.
“I went into Highigh Road around 1996996 and it was onlyonly supposed to be four or five episodes in the beginning. Then I was called back and I was in for about sevenn years after that.
“They put me through my motorbike test and I became the neww village bad boy. I would have loved to have done Trainspotting but they’d written this character for mee so I was in an impossible position.
“I had two great offers – it was one or the other. I’ve got no regrets. It wasn’t meant to be at that time and I loved High Road.
“Over the years I’ve worked on all these Irvine Welsh projects and become good friends with him. I did The Acid House, Crime and Trainspotting 2. Now,, all these years later, having worked with Jonny Lee Miller in Trainspotting 2, I’ve finally got my chance to play Sick Boy. It’s fabulous.” The stage adaptation of Welsh’s sequel to cult novel Trainspotting – which is on at the Pleasance Beyond from August 3-28 and could later tour – comes 30 years after the novel was published.
It has been adapted by Scots writer, w director, producer and actor David Carswell.
Like the book and film, it sees the return of Renton and Sick Boy to Edinburgh, where they are reunited with wit Spud and psychopath Begbie just out of prison.
Described D as “disturbing, shocking and extremely funny”, rehearsals are already well under way, with Outlander star Scott Kyle taking the role ofo Renton. Weir is co-producing with Carswell after the pair worked together twice previously on the Benny Lynch and Tommy Burns stories. And he believes audiences are in for a treat from their third collaboration.
He said: “I’ve been talking to Irvine about it for about five years, it was always something I wanted to do. David was the same and it was actually Irvine who put us together.
“Porno is a revenge story of these old friends, drug addicts who were stuck together and then destroyed by one of them robbing the others, and their journey is all travelling towards the same point where they meet again.
“It’s about betrayal but also getting older and the fact these guys haven’t really moved on.”
He added: “I’ve never been so keen to do a show. It’s wonderful to play these characters that are so well known but it’s also a frightening responsibility.
“I’m bleaching my hair and doing the whole thing but I’m not Jonny Lee Miller – I’m bringing my own Sick Boy.
“Sick Boy, for me, is the prince of darkness.”