Jack Lowden: The actor who has made success a running theme

Running seems to be the perfect motif for Jack Lowden’s career.

The 34-year-old actor has been nominated for an Emmy for his role as River Cartwright in the Apple TV spy drama Slow Horses. Now on season four, he’s been pounding the pavements since the first episode.

But it goes back even further. In 2012, Jack Lowden played Eric Liddell in the stage version of Chariots of Fire. He spent hours perfecting Liddell’s peculiar style of running for his West End performances.

“Running seems to be literally a running theme,” he agrees.

Jack Lowden's latest role in The Fifth Step sees him playing a young man new to Alcoholics Anonymous

“I don’t have a particularly attractive run either and I’m not particularly fast but I am always playing a character that’s running away from something. And my knees are getting a battering, that’s for sure.”

His latest role will give his knees a bit of a break. In David Ireland’s new play, the Fifth Step, he plays Luka, a young man new to Alcoholics Anonymous. His Slow Horses co-star Sean Gilder plays an older man who helps him get to grips with the programme.

He says he was drawn to the project because of David Ireland, who he believes he is “one of the best playwrights working in the UK”.

“He sent me a bunch of notes and thoughts about it and it sounded mad and typically David Ireland so it was a real honour to be asked to be in it – it was a no-brainer.”

“And when I realised it was with the National Theatre of Scotland - which is where I started – and I have always wanted to do stuff here on stage, it just became a golden opportunity.”

Lowden describes being offered the chance to work with playwright David Ireland in The Fifth Step as "a no-brainer"

That starting play was a revival of Black Watch in which he played the lead role of Cammy, one of a number of soldiers who tell their own stories and that of the regiment before it was amalgamated into the Royal Regiment of Scotland .

“I saw it when I was 16 on an English trip with Earlston High School at the Fruitmarket in Glasgow and it was an unforgettable experience and really cemented in my head that I wanted to be an actor.

“So then three or four years later to be the lead in it was incredible and it was just a total gift of a first job, and I am forever thankful for it.”

Lowden is no stranger to awards ceremonies but clearly hasn't forgotten where he comes from

Jack Lowden retains a close connection with the Borders, where he grew up. Having taken part in every school show during his time at Earlston High, he said he couldn’t refuse a request to contribute to this year’s event, marking the retirement of his old drama teacher Jeff Thomson.

“We need to become as comfortable as we can with storytelling – we are wonderful storytellers in this country and I will do everything and anything to support that,” he says.

“That storytelling and performing gives kids who wouldn’t normally feel confident or feel great about themselves a chance.

“I was a very shy kid growing up and until I went on stage and then I felt at home.”

“I wouldn’t be who I am without the arts, I wouldn’t have anywhere near the confidence I have been managed to find.”

“My younger brother is a ballet dancer and he wouldn’t be if there weren’t people to encourage him. He is an incredibly shy guy and it’s given him this life he would never have had.”

Slow Horses co-star Sean Gilder joins The Fifth Step cast

As well as making his debut at the Edinburgh International festival, The Outrun, the film he co-produced with his new wife actress Saoirse Ronan opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The event has had a turbulent few years, and he says they were keen to offer their support.

“I’ve been in films that have come to the EIFF but to have made one as part of the producing team is amazing – there’s a feeling of full circle-ness.”

“The film festival is in a sort of new cycle of life so it was such an honour to be asked to be the film that started that off again.”

He hopes they can both make more films together, although with various projects on the go, it’s a tricky balancing act. And that’s before the thorny issue of reduced public funding.

“Putting together an independent film seems exceptionally tough at the moment and the arts is under the cosh like never before,” he says.

“Cuts are being made and the arts are always one of the first to go. But they are unbelievably important, and they can change opinions, they can change lives. We shouldn’t be relying all the time on how resourceful people in the arts can be. We should be aiming to be a world leader in the arts because the potential is here.”

Jack Lowden was 19 when he starred in a High School Musical spoof Irn Bru advert

He says he’s delighted with the Emmy nomination for Slow Horses.

“Normally as an actor you’re not supposed to even acknowledge you’ve been nominated but I’m dead chuffed,” he says.

“It’s a nice thing to feel that people are enjoying what we are making and what we work very hard to do.

“It’s not just me – the show has had multiple nominations across the board. We are all delighted because a lot of people work incredibly hard to make that show. So I am loving it.”

And for all the accolades and awards, Jack Lowden hasn’t forgotten where he came from, or some of his earliest roles.

If Black Watch was a rite of passage for every young stage actor of his generation, Scotland’s other national drink offered him an even earlier screen role.

In 2009, he appeared in an advert for Irn Bru, a spoof of High School Musical.

“There’s always a fantastic moment when I am on a film set and the crew find it and you can just see folk in a group with their shoulders going up and down. Because it was ridiculous.

“I was 19 and I was so excited to do it and it did seem like a rite of passage because some of those adverts were works of art and had that brilliant typical cynical sense of humour and I’m immensely proud of it.”

So it seems his acting roots are one thing he's not running away from.

The Fifth Step is at the Edinburgh International Festival until Sunday 25 August and the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow from 28 August to 3 September.