Trainspotting star Kelly on road to BAFTA

Published on Thursday 17 January 2008 19:36

SHE leapt to fame as Ewan McGregor's one-night stand in Trainspotting in 1996, but feared that would be as far as she would get as she had no prior acting experience.

For a while it looked as if Kelly Macdonald might be right, for following Trainspotting a string of career disappointments saw her snubbed for leading roles in The Matrix and Shakespeare In Love – she also auditioned unsuccessfully for Nicole Kidman's role in Moulin Rouge.

"I kept wondering when someone was going to turn around to me and say, 'You're not supposed to be here'," admits the 31-year-old Glaswegian. "After Train-spotting, because I wasn't trained as an actress, I was sure that I would never act in another film ever again."

How wrong she was. The affable young actress has followed-up Trainspotting with starring roles in numerous feature films.

She was a knockout as the teenage prostitute In Stella Does Tricks, suitably feisty as the girl who charms a schizophrenic Daniel Craig in Some Voices, and she more than held her own among the all-star cast of Robert Altman's British country-house thriller, Gosford Park.

More recently, Macdonald won an Emmy for Richard Curtis' The Girl In The Cafe, a quirky romantic comedy set at a G8 summit.

But while she has had a decade of landing roles and has a string of top industry awards and nominations for her efforts, the modest star still feels that she is somewhat riding her luck.

She explains, "Even though I've now done many films, the idea that I've just happened on this career has never really gone away for me, and so I'm always waiting to be found out."

Her latest role, in No Country For Old Men – Oscar-winning screenwriters Ethan and Joel Coen's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel about crime and carnage along the Rio Grande – is not only one of her biggest parts to date, it was also one of the hardest to land.

BAFTA members have rewarded the film with nine nominations for the 2008 Awards, including Macdonald as Best Supporting Actress for her remarkable portrayal of a young wife from Texas.

She says: "It's a lovely start to the year, and I'm delighted."

Yet Macdonald – who in the drama plays trailer park wife Carla Jean Moss – had a hard job convincing the acclaimed directing duo to watch her audition tape, as they were convinced a Scot wouldn't be able to pull off a southern American accent.

"I really didn't expect to get the part," she explains. "I was in New York for a friend's wedding and I heard from my American agent that the Coen brothers were casting for a movie.

"Joel and Ethan had already said that they'd be casting near home, and I'm just about as far away from that as you can get," she smiles.

The film's casting director Ellen Chenoweth persuaded the Coens to meet her, and so Macdonald turned up for the audition. And while she and the filmmaking brothers chatted diffidently before her audition, Macdonald stuck to her native accent.

"They called me in to meet them," says Macdonald, "and I felt very nervous. I have always loved their films and I was desperate to work for them, but I thought they'd say no.

"They were very nice to me, but my impression was that they thought Ellen had gone slightly mad. I could see them shrugging while we were talking."

Then she switched to a Texan accent, and in an instant the Coen brothers were convinced.

So, she landed the role, and headed to New Mexico to make the film alongside the likes of Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Woody Harrelson – an experience she admits was "nerve-wracking" at first.

Nevertheless, the resulting film has been called 'the most measured, classical film of the Coen Brothers' career, and one of their best'.

But now that she looks to have made a huge success of her first ever American film, Macdonald – who was raised on a council estate, and working as a barmaid before she landed her career break in Trainspotting – is adamant she won't turn into a diva type.

The actress married Dougie Payne, the bassist with rock band Travis, four years ago, and the couple's first child is due in April.

"We are very happy," she says. "We are very happy about this baby. Dougie and I never really plan anything, but we really wanted to start a family. I was surprised about how strongly we both felt about it. It wasn't a case of, 'Oh, yes, maybe I'll get pregnant one day'. It was, 'Now's the time. Let's get going'.

"People keep asking me what I am going to do about work when the baby is born and my answer is I have no idea," admits Macdonald, who is clearly thrilled to be expecting a child. "I've done a lot of films, but there are great chunks of time when I am not working.

"I'm really enjoying being pregnant. The baby moves all the time and I love that. I'm almost wishing I didn't have to give birth, because I'll miss having the baby inside me."

Macdonald and Payne live a fairly low-key life in north London, where they are both able to go around unrecog-nised, which pleases a star for whom being autograph-hunted in the supermarket would make life "unbearable".

It's only recently, she admits, that she started referring to herself as an actress.

"I am unapologetic now, whereas before I couldn't bear to call myself an actor," she says. "Dougie found it hard to say he was a musician too – so passport control is especially bad."

According to recent reports, Trainspotting director Danny Boyle has informed Macdonald that she'll not be a part of the much-talked-about sequel if the film ever does go ahead.

But while it was in the role of schoolgirl Diane the actress made her name, she insists that she's not too fussed about the decision.

"There have been rumours about it over the past few years," she explains. "I bumped into Danny Boyle a few years ago, and he was talking about it and he said that Diane is not going to be in the sequel. So that's fine. Fine. He actually said that. I didn't bring it up."

Whatever, Macdonald doesn't appear too bothered about the whole thing. "I don't really see the point in a sequel anyway, so it takes the decision away from me," she says.

And why should she be care? Now that she's made a name for herself on the other side of the pond, things are looking well up for Scotland's most in-demand young actress.

Macdonald has recently wrapped-up filming In The Electric Mist, which sees her re-team with No Country For Old Men co-star Tommy Lee Jones, and she is also set to appear in the big screen adaptation of cult American novelist Chuck Palahniuk's Choke, which co-stars Anjelica Huston and Sam Rockwell.

Not bad going for an untrained actress.

No Country For Old Men opens today