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I HIT THE MCSKIDDS AFTER TRAINSPOTTING
How it's taken Kevin seven years to rise again

Brian Mciver

AFTER the performance of his life in only his second movie, Scots actor Kevin McKidd was one of the rising stars of British films.

The tall Highlander with the pin-up looks had just been showered with praise for his moving part as a tragic heroin addict in Trainspotting and with a growing army of fans, looked set to follow co- stars Robert Carlyle and Ewan McGregor to the top.

But just months after the record-breaking film was released, the
shell- shocked actor found himself out of work, convinced his career was over with no offers on the table. And while his Trainspotting colleagues were living the movie star life to the full in films with Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz, McKidd was forced to start working as a bicycle courier to survive. It's only now, after seven years of hard work and endless smaller roles in various film and TV projects, that he has finally fought his way back to top billing and could be about to join the likes of McGregor and Dougray Scott as the next big Hollywood Scot.

He is being talked about as the next big thing after a series of
acclaimed roles in hits like cult horror Dog Soldiers, John Cusack's thriller Max and the new period drama Nicholas Nickleby.

And while the likeable Scot is happy to be inundated with a string of high-profile work and offers, including a Hollywood movie with Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd, he insists he has been too close to the dole to ever take any of it for granted.

He said: "I've been really lucky recently because the work has just
been constantly going and that's the way I want it to be.

"But it's always been a leveller for me that when Trainspotting was released, I didn't have two beans to rub together, so I've always had a reality check. It came out eight months after we had filmed it so I had already spent my wages and was going through a lean period. When I went to the premiere party, I didn't even have any cash to buy a drink - I was just glad they were free.

"At that time, I didn't really do anything for about eight months and
I worked as a cycle courier because I was so skint. Because I was inexperienced, I thought that was it.

"I was just new to the business and thought that everybody loves this film, but everybody must think I'm rubbish in it.

"I remember speaking to Ewen Bremner and Jonny Lee Miller and they both had a lean time as well. It turned out they were all thinking the same thing as me."

It was only after an eight-month period out of work that McKidd's
performances in Trainspotting - he played tragic sportsman turned junkie and Aids victim Tommy - and debut film Small Faces started to bear out and he started getting big parts again.

And since starring in smaller but respected films like Scots war
movie Regeneration and Kate Winslet's Hideous Kinky, he hasn't looked back, and has been working constantly ever since, with 18 films and several TV shows in the last seven years. His profile took a huge boost last year with the cult horror hit Dog Soldiers.

He can currently be seen in John Cusack's controversial Hitler drama Max and has an important role in the Dickens adaptation Nicholas Nickleby, alongside Jamie Bell, Christopher Plummer, Jim Broadbent, Alan Cumming and Tom Courtenay.

He has also just finished filming three independent Scots movies, Afterlife, 16 Years of Alcohol and The Purifiers, as well as starting work on big budget Hollywood film De-Lovely, about the life of songwriter Cole Porter, with Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd.

The busy Scot has gone from being a Kung Fu action hero to a
Yorkshire nobleman, a blood- drenched soldier and a sleazy nightclub owner in the space of two years, and is just about to start work on a new West End musical with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

He said: "At the moment I'm just enjoying the work as it comes in, I haven't got a big master plan." Tommy's gruesome death in the first film has kept him out of any speculation surrounding a possible Trainspotting 2. He said: "I didn't think it would have the longevity it has had, but to be honest when I watch it, I think it's a little bit dated now, or maybe I'm just bored watching it.

"My hunch is that people will think that it was so good at the time
that to try and repeat it would be a mistake."

Despite his rising stardom, the 29 year old says he has no plans to move his wife Jane and kids Joseph, three, and Iona, one, to America to crack Hollywood.

But he is heading to Los Angeles this year to get a Hollywood agent.

He said: "Trying to make it out there is something I've always meant to do but I've been so busy. Now I've decided at the end of the year I'm going to go out there and see what happens.

"I couldn't bring up my children in LA, I want to bring them up
somewhere real.

"I don't want to end up with American kids."

Daily Record 27 Jun 2003

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