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CAMEOS
Actor Kevin Mckidd, overlooked in Trainspotting, he's hoping more from Small Faces.

"I think it's gonna become one of those archetypal student posters - up there with Bob Marley," says Scots actor Kevin McKidd of the stunning orange-black-and-white advert for Trainspotting. McKidd, who plays Tommy("the nice bloke who dies") in the film, is still kicking himself: before he found out about the poster photo shoot he had booked a holiday to Tunisia, and thus missed being part of the trendiest advertising image of the year.

Probable as a result, McKidd was completely ignored by the press for Trainspotting, our meeting is only his second ever interview. But the 22-year-old is hoping to boost his profile with the release this month of what was his feature-film debut, Gillies MacKinnon's Small Faces, the tale of three brothers growing up in the gang-torn Glasgow of 1968, McKidd plays the brothers' enemy, a brutal gang leader named "Malky" - Glaswegian slang for a knife or the slash wound made by a knife.

The son of a secretary and a water inspector, McKidd gave gangs a wide berth when he was growing up - "It was meant to be involved with what football team you supported but it was just a poor excuse to go out and beat people up." He first developed a taste for acting following a seminal moment with E.T. aged nine, "I thought Elliott was really cool to be friends with an alien," laughs McKidd.

After graduating from Glasgow's St Margaret's drama school, McKidd was headhunted by top agents International Creative Management. "At first I thought it was some computer company," he says. "But all the other actors in the play I was in were like, 'Oh my god - ICM!'"

McKidd will be next seen opposite Jon Bon Jovi in John Duigan's The Leading Man. Says the actor of his legendary co-star: "He ambled up to me in a scene where I was standing at the bar in the full kilt regalia and said, 'Wow, man, I really loved your movie Trainspotting.' It was a very surreal moment: a year ago I never could have imagined I would be complimented by a rock god."

Premiere May 1996 Louis Brealey

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