GEEKchocolate

Concealed under heavy makeup as Sandor “The Hound” Clegane, Knight of House Baratheon in Game of Thrones, Rory McCann may not be immediately recognisable, yet he has an impressive list of credits stretching from the drama of Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher, Oliver Stone’s Alexander and Shameless to the comedy of Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz and The Book Group for which he won a Scottish BAFTA award. On Sunday 18^th March the imposing yet personable actor was kind enough to sit down to a pint of Guinness in the bar at Birmingham’s Hilton Metropole Hotel while attending Starfury Throne Con.

 Geek Chocolate – Glasgow is fast becoming a major filming location for its architecture, its scenery and its amenities, with World War Z and Cloud Atlas shooting there over the last year, and the city now has its own successful film festival. How far do you think a homegrown film industry can develop?

Rory McCann – Well, the talent is there. Scotland is ready to take on anything like that, I’m sure. It’s very frustrating that it’s not a regular occurrence, every week. There’s all the facilities just sitting there, all that talent. It’s a small world, the film industry, and when I travel around the world, I’m meeting Scots working in the industry, spread out all over, and they can’t get any work back home.

GC – You’ve worked with many of the big names of Scottish film, David McKenzie, who directed you with Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton in Young Adam. What are your reflections on them?

RM – Young Adam was a nice little break for me. I knew David socially in Glasgow before, and I was hoping I would get a call, just for something, and I got a little part in a great film, and I got to meet absolute heroes of mine, in particular Peter Mullan who inspired me to be an actor, I would say, watching him in My Name is Joe, for example.

I’ll never forget being on set on the first day, I was very, very nervous, there was a knock on the door, and there was my hero, Peter Mullan, and he looked up at me and said “You’ll no have had your lunch, big man, do you know that we’re on afterwards?” And I said nervously, “Yeah I know we’re on afterwards, I’m not having any lunch.” And he said “Do you know there’s a pub just a few hundred yards up the road, why don’t we just go for a pint,” and he put me at ease. And that’s the kind of man he is.

And I met Tilda Swinton, and Tilda Swinton was absolutely fantastic. What an amazing woman she was. She actually found me my first London agent. So that was just a wonderful experience.