When in Rome

Published on Sunday 16 October 2005 00:06

KEVIN McKidd's shoulders are broad but fame has never sat easily on them. When it was first offered up to him, he cast it off. "I had this attitude, if something did well, I would be like, 'Oh God, oh God, what's going to happen now?' and I'd get really paranoid and run away," he says, cringing at the memory.

That was the Elgin-born actor immediately after Trainspotting made his name and those of Ewan McGregor, Bobby Carlyle, Ewen Bremner and Jonny Lee Miller - but an older, wiser and altogether more confident McKidd sits before me sipping tea in Soho today.

I tell him he seems pretty sorted. "Aye, well, I've got my garden."

But he's got more than that: he's got his very own blockbuster. This is Rome, the most expensive BBC drama ever. The others in his Trainspotting crew all went on to bigger, though not always better, things. Now it's his turn to reach for the sun.

"I feel OK, I'm pretty relaxed and I don't mind if this is a hit," says the 31-year-old. The BBC, it's safe to assume, will be a bit more anxious about the series' success. Rome isn't entirely the Beeb's baby; it's a joint production with America's Home Box Office, costing 58m. But this is supposed to be the big, golden-era throwback drama to remind us that TV can be about more than singing competitions featuring twerps in daft haircuts and distressed jeans. If it flops, empires could fall again.

The 11-part, swords-and-sandals epic is already running in the United States, where critics have compared it unfavourably to I, Claudius and also to The Sopranos, possibly forgetting that whatever the excesses of sex and violence of a bunch of Italian-American gangsters, Ancient Rome did everything first, and worst, during a toga party that lasted 400 years. Reviews described McKidd as "honourable and dour", which is about as positive an opinion of a Scotsman as you're likely to get. Nevertheless, HBO has commissioned a second run; the first hits our screens next month.

Like I, Claudius, Rome covers a pivotal moment in western history, when Julius Caesar was marching the troubled republic into the era of empire. The Derek Jacobi series could tell its story while wandering in and out of a few wobbly pillars; the post-Gladiator crowd expects big-screen wows, even on TV, and Rome has had to be excessive in all aspects. With a fibreglass Forum as the centrepiece, it was filmed in Rome's Cinecitta Studios, on what McKidd says was the biggest set ever built. It was also the longest shoot of his career - 14 months, and he was involved every day.

"I remember big drama series like Jesus Of Nazareth and The Thorn Birds, but they were very much of their time in the 1970s. TV isn't supposed to do things on that scale any more, so the first day on set was pretty daunting and all I was doing was staring at the scaffolding. I remember telling myself, 'Right, it's just you and a couple of other actors fronting this up. If it doesn't work, it's not going to scurry off under the nearest stone. Don't muck up.'"

The action opens in 52BC. Eight years of war have resulted in the conquest of Gaul. Eight years on from this point, Caesar, played by Ciaran Hinds, will have been assassinated. Everyone is living for the moment, as only the Romans knew how to. "Any desire will be tolerated," says someone early on. The peel-me-a-grape classes enjoy live sex shows, the slaughter of entire species of animal, the best plumbing and ripping dialogue: "You piss-drinking sons of circus whores!" They, of course, look down on the lower orders: "What a dreadful noise the plebs make when they are happy." But two plebs are crucial to Rome, soldiers in the 13th legion mentioned in Caesar's account of the Gallic War: Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus, played by Ray Stevenson and McKidd.

"My character's a bit of a Forrest Gump," says McKidd. "He not only arrives at the kind of great historical moment you read about in sixth-form studies, he changes events without realising through a kind of butterfly effect."

Pullo is the polar opposite of Vorenus. The former boasts: "Here I come, drinking all the wine, smoking every smoke and f****** every whore in the city!" And McKidd's character reprimands him: "Show some dignity - you are under the standard!"

Our man gets to kill a few people with "distilled, cold, pure violence" but isn't required for the numerous sex scenes. While his fellow soldiers rape and pillage, Vorenus is saving himself for his wife on his return from war. Back in 52BC, according to McKidd, cruelty was a virtue, mercy was a flaw and guilt didn't exist at all. "Everyone else thinks Vorenus is weird for not joining in, it's almost as if he's the harbinger of the Christian mentality."

If the producers intended for Vorenus to be Rome's moral conscience, then they have chosen well with McKidd. He's completely unstarry. The last time we met, our chat was interrupted by a berk landing his helicopter; that was a year ago, but it's the first thing he mentions today. When I ask him how he enjoyed his villa with pool while filming Rome, he prefers to talk about the bilingual opportunities the relocation afforded his children, Joseph and Iona.

Asked to reveal his biggest indulgence and he thinks long and hard before answering: "Curry on a Friday night." Then he reconsiders the question: "School fees." He voices concern about falling education standards and how, in Berkshire, he and his wife Jane will have to pay for the quality of teaching for his kids that cost his parents nothing when he attended a "brilliant school", Elgin Academy. His local education authority deals in euphemisms. "Joint teaching" is when two teachers standing back to back struggle to make themselves understood to respective classes of 40. "Focus learning" is finding a bit of peace and quiet for lessons in a broom cupboard. He wishes he didn't have to send Joseph and Iona to private school, but says: "You've got to look after your bairns."

McKidd admits he was a swot at Elgin Academy and, under the tutelage of Rome's historical expert Jonathan Stamp, felt like he was back in class as he researched his role. "I've always liked grafting. At school I liked to apply myself and when we were filming the series I drove HBO nuts, phoning them at two in the morning to suggest some new dialogue."

He laughs as he recalls a particularly arduous day on location, trying to take some gear off a make-up girl for a long trudge up a hillside for the next scene, and being told off for it. "She said, 'What are you doing? You're the lead actor!'" McKidd had come to the series straight from making 16 Years Of Alcohol, Richard Jobson's no-budget bovver-boy art flick, where everyone had to muck in; this was the film that got him an American agent.

McKidd is not precious about Rome. He appreciates the unintentional comedy of lines such as 'Brutus, my old cock!' "There were a few times between scenes when we were quoting Monty Python at each other," he chuckles. Nevertheless he's proud of the series.

Promoting it in America, he was asked if he felt the pressure of being involved in a show which, if its failure wouldn't quite bring down HBO, would severely dent its reputation after era-defining series such as The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Six Feet Under. "I didn't. I felt under pressure a year ago when I was getting up at 4.30 every morning to film it.

"When premieres come along you go because you want your wife to wear a nice dress because she has to deal with you being away from home for so long. Rome is out there now, and it is what it is."

For McKidd, it is proof that careers, like empires, aren't built in a day. "Actors are up one minute, down the next. It's, 'Here we go, let's get the plasma screens!' Then they're working in a pub."

After Trainspotting, McKidd didn't splash money on luxury goods - not his style - but he did have a stint pulling pints, and was occasionally taunted by obnoxious drunks over this apparent fall from grace. He also had a spell working on a building site and, being a grafter, he thoroughly enjoyed it.

One day, he was offered an apprenticeship, which would have guaranteed him 60,000 a year, as a "diamond-cutter", gouging holes in concrete.

"I went home to mull it over. Then that night my agent, who I hadn't heard from for a long time, called to tell me about an audition. That was a wee fork in the road, and I ended up telling myself, 'No, you're an actor.'"

He's coming to terms with the facts that he's a star. "I'm starting to get considered for big films, to make a name for myself. A few years ago I would have been embarrassed about that, but I'm feeling quite proud."

Kevin McKidd had better watch out. Excessive use of the word "quite" will have us thinking all that Roman debauchery has rubbed off on him.

• Rome starts on BBC1 next month