Robert Carlyle couldn’t put Trainspotting character out of his mind

Robert Carlyle has spent the two decades since the last Trainspotting film thinking about his character Francis Begbie.
In director Danny Boyle’s new movie T2 Trainspotting, the sequel to his iconic 1996 film about a gang of Scottish drug abusers, the 55-year-old actor returns alongside castmates Ewan McGregor, 45, Ewen Bremner, 45, and Jonny Lee Miller, 44.
Carlyle says he has spent the intervening 21 years wondering what might have happened to the psychotic Begbie and his friends.
“I was emotional when I got the script. It’s hard to explain, but you grow so attached to the guys and I’ve lived with Begbie for the last 20 years – everywhere I go, every week someone shouts his name at me,” he tells U.K. chat show host Graham Norton.
“I often wondered where he is and where he’s been. So when the script arrived it wasn’t just Begbie, all the guys were where I expected them to be. It was a moving experience. I’d never had it happen before and I get hundreds of scripts – I was genuinely moved.”
McGregor, 45, who plays main protagonist Mark Renton in both movies, reveals he wasn’t sure about making a second film because of the popularity of the original.
“There was hesitation years and years ago – we didn’t want to do anything that damaged the reputation of the original film,” he explains.
However when a script he describes as “blinding” materialised two years ago he was persuaded to reprise his role.
Returning director Boyle agrees that the passing of time has added a poignancy to the new film, as a major theme is how its characters, who when audiences last saw them were reckless youngsters, struggle to cope with middle-age.
“You couldn’t just repeat it (the original film),” he explains. “And if you do, you have to do it straight away with a sequel. The 20 years that have passed stand as the main element.
“You unfreeze the characters in time but the occasional glimpses of their youth are very moving. Ageing is something we all face, whether we are aware of it or not. It’s in the post for everyone!”
Agreeing with the British filmmaker, McGregor adds, “There is a nostalgia that exists that wouldn’t have if we’d made it sooner. It’s taken 20 years to have this beautiful weight of looking back at our youth through these characters.”
T2 Trainspotting opens in British cinemas on Friday (27Jan17).