EWAN McGregor has revealed that he wasn’t keen to make Trainspotting 2 – because Irvine Welsh’s follow-up novel left him cold.
The 45-year-old actor admits he was sceptical about making another Trainspotting film because he “didn’t like the novel Porno very much”.
The Perthshire-born star even went as far as writing to director Danny Boyle to rule out returning as his character Mark Renton from the cult classic.
A sequel to the initial Trainspotting film, released in 1996, has been touted since ‘Porno’ came out in 2002, the second book which follows on from Welsh’s original novel on which the hit film is based.
However, it wasn’t until 2014, when Welsh and Boyle met up to discuss ideas, that the wheels were set in motion.
McGregor will reprise his role as Renton alongside co-stars Ewen Bremner, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller and Kelly Macdonald when ‘T2’ is released in January next year despite being initially being averse to the idea.
McGregor said: “There wasn’t a script at that point, but I wrote to them saying I didn’t want to do a sequel to Trainspotting. I didn’t like the novel Porno very much.
“It didn’t move me like Trainspotting had and I didn’t want to tarnish the reputation of Trainspotting by making a poor sequel.”
The Scots actor had a well-documented fall-out with Boyle when the director chose to cast Leonardo DiCaprio instead of him in The Beach, despite working for him on Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and A Life Less Ordinary.
The pair reconciled in 2009, when McGregor presented an award to Boyle for his achievements as a director.
McGregor continued: “I talked about how it felt to be on his set and how I felt defined as an actor by being his actor. And at the end I just said that I loved him and missed him.”
As well as his portrayal of Renton, the star is famous for his role as Obi-Wan
Kenobi in the Star Wars films but admits he almost turned it down because he didn’t feel the part suited his style at the time.
“Star Wars is Star Wars, it’s something I grew up with as a kid. At first I was very reluctant to do it, because I saw myself as this urban, grungy actor doing films about heroin and stuff, and that’s who I felt I was,” McGregor said.
“But the nearer I got to it, the more I wanted to do it and it wasn’t for money reasons. I got paid nicely for it, but it wasn’t ridiculous by any means.
“It was to do with being in it and it didn’t feel like Hollywood. George Lucas hated Hollywood, he was in San Francisco following the beat of his own drum.”
‘T2’ will hit cinema screens in January next year and is set 20 years on from events in the original film.
Trainspotting was the highest-grossing British film of 1996, and at the time it was the fourth highest grossing British film in history.
It has been ranked tenth in a list of the top 100 British films of all time and in 2004 was voted the best Scottish film of all time.
