Ewan McGregor feared he '˜wasn't Scottish enough' for Trainspotting 2

Actors Ewan McGregor and Ewan Bremner running through the streets of Edinburgh filming scenes for the new Trainspotting. Picture; Jane Barlow

DOWNLOAD THE EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS APP ON ITUNES OR GOOGLE PLAY

The actor has revealed he was anxious about playing Mark Renton again in the film as he felt disconnected from his homeland.

The 45-year-old, originally from Crieff, Perthshire, moved to London when he was 17 and has lived in Los Angeles for the last eight years.

However, he told how his fears were allayed after he read the script and discovered the Renton character had been living abroad before returning to Scotland.

T2, the sequel to the 1996 film about a group of Edinburgh heroin addicts, will be released in January with Oscar-winner Danny Boyle directing McGregor and co-stars Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller and Ewen Bremner.

McGregor said: “When I flew to Scotland to start shooting Trainspotting 2 I was scared.

“I was thinking ‘what will it be like to put the shoes on of this character again, it’s been 20 years, what if I can’t find Renton?’.

“I haven’t lived in Scotland since I was 17. I worried about not being Scottish enough.

“But of course Renton is me and I’m him and our stories are not dissimilar in a way although I didn’t take a lot of smack.

“When I got on set it was absolutely fine. When I put on the Adidas I was all good then. The script is a blinder.”

The Star Wars actor also revealed he kept close to his Scottish roots by playing the bagpipes at home in LA.

He said: “I started playing a few years ago. It is quite a Scottish thing to do.

“I learned to play the pipes in my trailer while filming a long, slow movie called Jack The Giant Slayer.

“By the end of the five months on the movie I could play the bagpipes.

“The thing about the bagpipes is it is so hard to find somewhere to play them because they are so loud and my kids and my wife don’t like it much.

“And my dog howls when I play. Something about the harmonics kicks off his wolf instincts.”

T2 was shot on various locations across Scotland during the summer and is currently being edited by Boyle ahead of its release.

It is loosely based on writer Irvine Welsh’s 2002 follow-up novel Porno and the author will feature in a cameo role.