Irvine Welsh: ‘Begbie to be nicer in Trainspotting sequel’

Trainspotting writer Irvine Welsh believes film audiences will see his iconic character Francis Begbie in a new light in its sequel.
In the 1996 movie, actor Robert Carlyle stole scene after scene as the violent alcoholic acquaintance of its central group of Scottish heroin addicts.
One of the most famous saw Begbie begin a mass brawl in a pub in Edinburgh, Scotland by throwing a glass into a crowded bar.
Irvine, who wrote the original Trainspotting novel and its follow-up Porno, says that in the new film, which like its predecessor will be directed by Danny Boyle, audiences will see the notoriously angry character as a new man.
“It was interesting to try and reboot him,” he told Wow247.co.uk. “To redesign the character. He gets in touch with the source of his anger and his rage and he manages to contain it and exercise a bit of self-control and that generates more choices.”
Initially the author feared he had made his character too crazy to write about again and considered killing him off.
“Well, he’s so uncompromising and such a crazy guy, you couldn’t have kept that going,” he added. “He would have died through misadventure or ended up in solitary confinement, in a padded cell for the rest of his life. He was just one of these characters that I thought was burned out.”
Although it is believed that the Trainspotting sequel will draw some elements from Porno, it is not thought to follow its exact plot, which sees the characters venture outside the U.K. to Amsterdam, Zurich and California.
Despite making Begbie less sociopathic in his follow-up novel, the writer admits to being heavily influenced by Robert’s famously crazed performance in Trainspotting, saying, “You can’t help but be influenced by it because it’s such an iconic performance. There’s these different layers to the character which gives me so much to think about. It all feeds in to the mix.”
Of the upcoming movie he adds, “It’s going to be a very interesting film. The great challenge that we had was to make a film that builds on the Trainspotting legacy, but isn’t a prisoner to it.”
The as yet untitled sequel to Trainspotting is scheduled to begin filming next month (May16) and will reach cinemas in 2017.