Princes Street with Iggy Pop blaring, movie writer celebrates Trainspotting
I spotted her as soon as she walked in. It’s odd but can happen like that sometimes. I just remember seeing her and thinking, ‘That’s Diane’
Director Danny Boyle on star’s audition
It’s April 1995 and the Trainspotting team are looking to cast a key role – Diane Coulston. Director Danny Boyle remembers: “We wanted somebody completely new because she had to play this double thing of playing a sophisticated young woman and yet she turns out to be a schoolgirl.” After passing out flyers in Glasgow advertising a casting call and appealing for the new Patricia Arquette or Kate Moss, a waitress and aspiring actress, Kelly Macdonald, 19, is handed two in the space of an hour. It feels like fate and will lead to one of Scotland’s most significant screen careers. Here is an edited extract from Trainspotting: 25th Anniversary by Jay Glennie.
“Kelly, a guy popped this flyer into the record shop and I thought of you.”
Aside from looking nothing like Arquette or Moss, Kelly Macdonald decided to pocket the flyer and read it later. Thanking her friend, she returned to the restaurant to complete her shift. “Kelly, a guy just came in with this flyer and I thought of you.”
Now with two flyers in her pocket, Macdonald felt that she was in receipt of something important. Finishing for the day she fished out the leaflets and read them. Again she reminded herself she was nobody’s idea of Patricia Arquette or Kate Moss and further to that nagging problem was the ever-present issue of her financial situation, which was impeding any sense of excitement. The film was to be based on Irvine Welsh’s novel and each applicant would need a headshot.
There was no way she could afford the book and the photograph, and buy food and milk that week.
The solution was to visit the local book shop, where she could read Trainspotting over the course of a few days, which would give a little insight into what the film was about; the toss-up between photographs or bread and milk would have to be resolved.
On the morning of the casting call, Kelly Macdonald took one last look at herself in the mirror. A hairdresser friend had been pestering her to be let loose on her long hair, to do something different and now here she stood, barely recognising herself, with what could only be described as a “bonkers short haircut”. Nervously she took in the rest of her outfit. Her big woolly jumper had holes in it as did her jeans, and did Kate Moss ever wear big black clumpy shoes?
With one last sigh to help quell her nerves, she left her flat, with one more task to perform. Standing in front of the photo booth in Glasgow Central Station she was dithering, the coins danced around the palm of her hand, in synchronicity with her doubts.
“It was a huge decision: either I buy bread and milk or pay for the photographs. I had made the decision that I wanted to move out and here I was wasting money on what on the face of it looked like a lost cause. But I knew that if I put the money into the machine I would have to go to the Trainspotting open audition, because being a good Scot I didn’t want to waste money.”
Photographs in hand, she made her way to Strathclyde University. It wasn’t a building she was familiar with, but somehow she had made it to the correct hall, crammed with attractive young women, seemingly confident in pretty dresses and nice shoes, all with lovely long hair.
Unbeknownst to Macdonald she had already been spotted. She had been right; she was the odd one out and had instantly caught the eye of her future director.
“I spotted her as soon as she walked in,” recalled Danny Boyle. “It’s odd but sometimes it happens and you just know. I remember seeing her and thinking, ‘That’s Diane’.”
Taking a seat in front of the desk at the top end of the hall, she was asked what her name was. The question came from the guy with the glasses and spiky quiff. Forcing herself to look at him, she thought he looked like the singer from the band The Smiths. Handing over her brief résumé and picture she replied: “Kelly Macdonald.”
Looking down the table and nodding at one of his colleagues, the man who had introduced himself as Danny smiled and replied, “Kelly...macdonald, that’s our producer’s name.”
“What? Your producer’s name is Kelly Macdonald?”
Her response was dry, funny, not rude but with just the right amount of sarcasm and confidence, Danny Boyle recalled restraining himself. A few short questions and Macdonald was back out on the street and making her way home; all that anxiety and worry and for what? But she felt it had gone well; she had a good feeling; had something happened or had she imagined it? Would she ever hear from them again?
It had not been her imagination. In a room of some 900 girls, Danny Boyle felt as though they had found their Diane.