Ewan McGregor was said that he’s open to taking on the role that originally pushed him into the spotlight in a sequel to the 1996 dark comedy drama Trainspotting.
The actor, who was speaking at this year’s Edinburgh film festival, told press that he has changed his mind about returning to play the heroin-addicted protagonist Renton in a follow-up reuniting him with director Danny Boyle.
“I would be up for it,” he said. “I’ve said that to Danny. Everybody has talked about it and speculated about it, but I don’t if it’s happening yet. I’ve not seen a script and I don’t know if there is one. It’s been a long, long time.”
After working with Boyle in his first three films, there was a widely reported falling out between the pair after Leonardo DiCaprio was picked to star in The Beach over McGregor. The actor now says there is no ill will between him and the Oscar-winning director of Slumdog Millionaire.
“I just think I’ve changed my opinion about it,” he said. “We’ve all moved on and there is a lot of water under the bridge now. I miss working with Danny, I did some of my best work with him and he’s one of my favourite directors I’ve worked with. There was some bad blood and ill feeling, but that’s all gone now. I think it might be extraordinary to see a sequel 20 years after the original.”
Back in April, Irvine Welsh spoke about his desire to still make a big screen sequel work. “Myself, Danny and John Hodge,” he said. “We are all really keen for it to happen, but only in the right circumstances. The circumstance has always been that nobody needs the money, so there’s no point in doing in for that reason.”
Welsh wrote Porno, a sequel to Trainspotting, in 2002 where the pornography business became the backdrop for the story. It’s based nine years after the first book.
