There was a time, and not so long ago, when Scotland's contribution to world cinema could be summed up in two words: Sean Connery. For a time in the eighties you could have perhaps added Bill Forsyth to that singularly select list, but for the most part the former Edinburgh milkman was it - the country's sole representative on the big screen, propelled there thanks to the sly wit and testosterone whiff he brought to the role of Britain's greatest spy.
That was then. Now you can't watch a James Bond movie without tripping over a Scottish accent. More pertinently, Scots can be found on soundstages all over the globe - from the
confines of the latest underachieving Britflick to the big-budget, small-brained Hollywood
project. Take a look at this year's successes and you'll find a Scot. Harry Potter has Robbie Coltrane, Moulin Rouge has Ewan McGregor, The Mummy Returns features John Hannah (even if he is attempting a ludicrous upper-class English accent) and Ewen Bremner graduated from Trainspotting to Pearl Harbor. As the
portrait photographer David Eustace's pictures on these pages attest, there is now a generation of Scottish actors which has a substantial presence in the industry at home and abroad.
This transformation from film famine to film feast hasn't taken long. Ten years ago, after all, Connery was still on his own. Something
happened to cause this shift in the cultural
climate. And that something was Trainspotting.
Viewing Danny Boyle's 1995 adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel of schemies and smack today, it's difficult to see what the excitement was about. But the film's merits, or lack of them, shouldn't blind us to the fact that it helped
reinvigorate British film-making with a sense of adventure and relevance, helped by a group of attractive new faces.
''This generation had been lurking around for a while and they had all made some good films,'' says Alan Morrison, reviews editor of the film
magazine Empire and one of Trainspotting's earliest supporters. ''But this was the one that made them world players. It wasn't a mainstream hit in the US but it was the kind of film the studio executives wished they had made.'' As a result McGregor and Carlyle began to be greenlighted for Hollywood projects. ''It helped that a lot of these guys were very good-looking,'' adds Morrison, ''so they got a combination of good acting skills and Hollywood looks.''
Not everyone believes Trainspotting was the only factor in the creation of the new generation of Scottish stars. Producer Douglas Rae, the man at the helm of Ecosse Films, speaks up for his own film. ''I thought it was Mrs Brown that did it,'' he half-jokes. ''It was a combination because Trainspotting was kind of radical and put that style of film-making on the map. But Mrs Brown gave the impression that Scotland was on the move again. I hope our new film Charlotte Gray will do that too because it's
getting an international marketing campaign and there will be nobody who won't know that it is a film made by a Scottish company, partly in Scotland, about a Scot.''
Advance word on the wartime thriller is good, but it does flag up one of the weaknesses of the current generation - a lack of women. For a while Kelly MacDonald has managed to parlay her appearance in Trainspotting into a film career but it's significant that Rae looked to
Australia for an actress to play his title role. ''One has to find somebody who can raise (pounds) 25m and Cate Blanchett was our only choice,'' argues Rae. ''It's a peculiar situation where you have a lot of strong Scottish leads, yet we don't have the actresses. I don't really know why that is.''
There is one flicker of hope. The recent critical success of the American thriller The Deep End and the resulting talk of Oscar nominations may mean that its star Tilda Swinton could soon join McGregor and Carlyle as a major player.
Yet in a year in which the British film industry has been shrouded with gloomy headlines, does the nationality of Ewan McGregor, or even Sean Connery have any bearing on the health of our national cinema? Producer Angus Lamont, of Glasgow independent production company Ideal World, is not convinced. ''There's no relationship between say Sean Connery's career and the viability of a film production company in Britain, never mind Scotland. You don't phone up somebody and say we come from the same country as Sean Connery. Anyway, they'd probably say, ''Oh, where is that? Ireland.''
That cynicism isn't shared by Rae. ''It makes it easier for me to raise money in Hollywood to say I'm Scottish and they know Sean Connery, Billy Connolly and Robbie Coltrane.''
Whether the current tranche of Scottish actors is just the first generation or the only one remains to be seen. They may just be a blip - as rare and momentary as a decent national football team. And in the end does the fact we have a few familiar names and faces up on the big screen really matter other than giving us a fillip of self-esteem? Cinema, after all, speaks an international language. ''I'm not trying to make good Scottish films,'' argues Lamont. ''What I'm
trying to do is make good films, full stop.''
Robbie Coltrane
Age: 51
Born: Rutherglen
The big man
Back in the 1980s Robbie Coltrane was a stand-up comedian and minor television personality who would spend his time in interviews wistfully wishing for a future on the cinema screen. As it was, apart from the odd arthouse oddity and big-budget misfire, his larger-than-life frame was usually squeezed into the box in the corner of the living room.
Television, of course, was the making of him, particularly his appearance as the hard-living, hard-drinking psychologist Cracker - possibly a bit of typecasting given his reputation as a hell-raiser.
Coltrane did eventually win that film career and most recently appeared as Hagrid in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Highs: Skipping through the park to the strains of Nat King Cole as the closing credits of Mona Lisa start to roll. He's light on his feet for a big man.
Lows: Nuns on the Run, obviously.
Alan Cumming
Age: 36
Born: Carnoustie
Camp commandant
There was always a strain of affection in the piss-take of luvvie manners that was Victor and Barry, the comedy duo with which Alan Cumming, in association with Forbes Masson, made his name.
Certainly no one else in the acting world's Scotia nostra has so embraced the stereotype as the man from Carnoustie. In interviews he can come across as a name-dropping, A-list flibbertigibbet, but next to McGregor and Carlyle, there's no Scots actor with such a high profile in the wider world. Since becoming the toast of Broadway with his menacing mincer in Cabaret, Cumming's profile has been on the up. He has worked with everyone from Stanley Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut) to the Spice Girls and even popped behind the camera for his directorial debut The Anniversary Party earlier this year.
There's something splendidly shameless about his cinematic
CV where a Shakespearian adaptation (Titus) can nestle alongside a live-action version of a kiddie cartoon (Josie and the Pussycats). And, having revealed his bisexuality two years ago, Cumming also provides a loud-mouthed, soft-voiced riposte to the aggressively macho image of the Scottish male Connery has always offered.
Highs: The school geek who morphs into a millionaire in the silly and passably entertaining Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. All very Alan Cumming.
Lows: A turn as a criminal computer nerd in GoldenEye made Cumming one
of the unlikeliest
Bond villains.
Iain Glen
Age: 40
Born: Edinburgh
Cheekbones like geometry
It's not a bad life being an actor. Earlier this year Iain Glen could be seen playing opposite Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft, while the other year he got to see Nicole Kidman take her clothes off every night on stage in The Blue Room.
As career perks go, those aren't bad. Yet there must be some frustration chez Glen. Despite his ski-slope cheekbones, whippet-thin physique and obvious intelligence, he has never managed to carve himself a niche on the big screen and can often be found in cameo roles (as Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead) or playing second fiddle to bigger names (such
as Harvey Keitel in Young Americans). If you know him, it is probably from
such small-screen endeavours as
Glasgow Kiss.
Highs: At a push his performance in The Mountains of the Moon as a nineteenth-century explorer searching for the source of the Nile, but his filmography is on the thin side.
Lows: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Life's too short to watch a movie based on a videogame.
Ewan McGregor
Age: 30
Born: Crieff
Beefcake with a brain
McGregor, previous page, is the most engaging star of the Scottish glitterati and has long since eclipsed Connery as the country's most desirable male. Despite his status as prime ''eye candy'' (ever ready to show off the family jewels), he has always been an adventurous actor. For every Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, there is half a dozen Pillow Books and Velvet Goldmines.
Highs: McGregor was the best thing in Trainspotting and holds his own against the tricksiness of the movie's direction.
Look out for: McGregor is soon to start shooting a small-budget adaptation of Young Adam, a thriller by the notorious Scottish beat writer Alexander Trocchi. There is also some George Lucas movie on the horizon.
Joe McFadden
Age: 26
Born: Glasgow
Fringe player
Joe McFadden, left, has struggled to really establish himself since he made his big-screen debut in Gillies McKinnon's Glasgow gangland thriller Small Faces. It's not that he hasn't been seen. He started out in the Scottish soap Take the High Road and has been a small-screen regular, but as yet it is really only his performance in Rent in London's West End that has made any real impression. Some unkind souls have even nicknamed him Pinocchio: good-looking, but wooden.
Highs: He made a fine foil for Dougray Scott in The Crow Road. And he looked pretty good in Paul Smith clothes for a Japanese advert.
Gerard Butler
Age: 32
Born: Glasgow
New blood
You would think as a qualified lawyer, Butler, left, would have been able to read the script of Dracula 2001, never mind the contract. Still, a lead role is a lead role, even if it does mean you have to come on like a low-rent Lord Byron in
a frankly risible
modern-day version
of Bram Stoker's hardy perennial.
Highs: He has been linked with a certain character called Bond.
Kelly MacDonald
Age: 24
Born: Glasgow
The girl most likely to ...
What is it with all these girls? The mildly paranoid among us could easily imagine that the proliferation of jejune actresses with a Scottish accent is some kind of patriarchal conspiracy. Thankfully, unlike Laura Fraser, Kelly MacDonald has at least tried to vary her roles in the years since Trainspotting turned her from a barmaid to a poster girl.
She has worked with defiantly arthouse directors like Mike Figgis (Loss of Sexual Innocence) and veteran Robert Altman (the upcoming Gosford Park), pulled on corsets for the odd costume drama (Elizabeth, Cousin Bette and, um, Gosford Park)
and done her share
of allegedly ''heartwarming'' Britcoms including this year's Strictly Sinatra.
Highs: In Stella Does Tricks, MacDonald won her only starring role in a slice of kitchen-sink bleakness scripted by
AL Kennedy. She is the best thing about it.
Look out for: Have we mentioned Gosford Park?
Behind the lens
From the outside there's nothing special about David Eustace's eyes. Watery greeny-blue, they reside in a long face decorated with five-day stubble. To be honest as eyes go, they're hardly Paul Newman dazzlers. Still, it's not how they look that matters, it's what they see.
These days the former Barlinnie prison officer
is one of Britain's leading magazine photographers, a speed dial on the mobiles of magazine editors who want to ensure the images that fill their pages have the requisite celebrity shimmer.
Since the late eighties Eustace, 40, has been a regular contributor to the likes of GQ, Arena and Vogue, offering a stark style that contrasts with the ''everything and the kitchen sink'' approach adopted by such US contemporaries as David LaChapelle and Annie Liebovitz. Dancing elephants, he admits, rarely figure on his expense sheet.
The art of magazine photography is not, he argues, a revelatory one. ''I don't believe my photographs or anybody's photographs will tell you how a person is,'' he says in a voice croaky with flu. ''A lot of people romanticise and say this or that picture says so much about that person. It's all bullshit. That's what the person was doing at that time or that moment.''
But his ability to catch that moment has allowed him the opportunity to fly in private jets with Paul McCartney and have lunch with Sophia Loren. It has also kick-started a career as a commercials director which, he says, gives you a ''buzz''. ''You get to play with all the boy's toys,'' he grins. ''But they also give me the financial reward to allow me to concentrate on still photography which has got a lot weirder in the last couple of years.''
By that he means he has branched out into street photography, walking around New York and Glasgow to capture images on the hoof. ''It's a lot less controlled,'' he says. He's now working on a portfolio of car parks. It's the only stationary thing about him.
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