Kevin McKidd: From Trainspotting to the Railway Children

Trainspotting actor Kevin McKidd is back filming in Scotland and, once again, the subject is trains.

"It all started with Trainspotting. There has to be a train involved somewhere in everything I do, it turns out," he jokes.

McKidd is back in Scotland to film the Primrose Railway Children, a CBBC family drama set to air over Christmas.

The Grey's Anatomy star says it's fantastic to be back home, working with crews that remember him from early in his career.

"It all started with Trainspotting" said McKidd of the 1996 film that kicked off his career

"I get very homesick." he admits.

"I'm in Los Angeles filming for nine months of the year so anytime I get to come home and work with people from my past and connect with everybody... it's lovely.

"I cut my teeth here as an actor doing Trainspotting and Small Faces and all those films back in the day, so it feels like coming home for me."

Born in Elgin in Moray, McKidd started acting in local youth theatre before going on to study drama at Queen Margaret University.

He found success in his role as Tommy Mackenzie in Trainspotting in 1996.

Since 2008, he has played an American doctor and fans' favourite Dr Owen Hunt in Grey's Anatomy.

Voicing the characters of Lord MacGuffin and young MacGuffin in Disney Pixar movie Brave in 2012 gave him the opportunity to exhibit his real off-screen accent as well as some Doric, a dialect he heard spoken at home by his grandfather.

Working on Grey's Anatomy has exposed McKidd to an international audience and allowed him to work on directing

His work on Grey's Anatomy has also allowed the actor gain experience in directing.

McKidd said the Hollywood film and TV industries are starting to recognise the beauty and versatility of filming in Scotland.

He says: "There is so much that Scotland has to give. Back 30 years ago, big Hollywood studios would come for the weekend and film the mountains and leave again. But now more and more productions are coming to Scotland and setting up camp here.

"There's films in Scotland now that aren’t necessarily set in Scotland but the architecture and landscapes are so stunning they can be used for different areas. There's a lot more versatility to Scotland and I think people are realising that in the industry.

"Scotland's crews are some of the best in the world, really highly skilled and its some of the best locations in the world. I mean, look at it, its stunning. "

'A place to belong'

His latest project, the Primrose Railway Children, is currently filming in Glasgow and the Highlands.

The 90-minute CBBC special is an adaptation of Dame Jacqueline Wilson's popular children's novel - a modern-day retelling of Edith Nesbit classic, The Railway Children.

A fan of the original Railway Children film as a child, McKidd will play father Rob Robinson with Nina Toussaint-White as his wife, Sarah Robinson.

The story follows children Phoebe (Ava McCarthy), Becks (Ida Brooke) and Perry (Tylan Bailey) and their mum who are living a comfortable life in Glasgow before being uprooted and moved to the remote highlands of Scotland.

He says: "It's about a family that goes through its challenges like every family has to at some point and there's some separation of the parents and it's about how do you heal that, how do you come back together again and how do you find a place to belong."

McKidd said the project will give him the opportunity to let his own children enjoy some of his work.

"I don’t get to do many things that my little kids get to watch because I’m on Grey's Anatomy and it's all this fake blood and it's quite scary.

"It's nice to actually have something I can sit down with my family at Christmas and watch and let them see what Dad does for a living."