Scottish actor Peter Mullan has said that in the past he would not have touched a project which cast English people as Scots, but has been won over by the performances in Stonemouth.
He plays Don Murston in a new crime drama adaptation of Iain Banks’ novel, where he stars alongside English actors Christian Cooke and Charlotte Spencer.
Peter said: “Back in the day, I would have been less happy to see two English actors play two Scots. In fact, I wouldn’t have done it, to be honest.
“But thankfully, since Bobby [Robert] Carlyle, Ewan McGregor and Kevin McKidd, and obviously now James McAvoy, these great actors have proved you can play any part and not just Scottish.
“In the last 15-20 years, you’ve got Scots actors playing English characters with nobody raising an eyebrow and the other way around, so I don’t have an issue with it. In fact, I was in awe of Christian and Charlotte, who were absolutely spot-on and had faultless Scottish accents.”
He continued of his admiration for Christian: “He did it in the same way that Bobby [Carlyle] did it when he played a Liverpudlian in Cracker, and Jonny Lee Miller did in Trainspotting.
“In fact, I never knew that Jonny was English – that came as quite a shock to me,” he said of filming the 1996 Danny Boyle classic, in which he also starred.
Stonemouth is a two-part drama beginning on BBC Two on Thursday, June 11.
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