Kelly Macdonald recalls uniform blushes

Kelly Macdonald bumped into a friend when she was wearing a school uniform and fears the woman thought she was “twisted”.

The Scottish actress found fame in the 1996 movie Trainspotting. Her character Diane took Renton – portrayed by Ewan McGregor – home one night and he was horrified to discover she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl the next morning.

Kelly can vividly recall shooting a scene in a uniform as it left her feeling mortified.

“I was doing a scene where Diane is shopping for CDs in this brown school uniform, and I bumped into a girl on the street from my own school, Eastwood High, that I’d left three years before,” she recalled to British newspaper The Times. “She just kept chatting, but I knew she was thinking I was one of those weird, twisted people who lied about their age and went back to school.”

Kelly voices a character in the new animated movie Brave and also appears in the critically acclaimed US drama Boardwalk Empire.

She knew she wanted to act from an early age, and was thrilled to land the Trainspotting role aged 19. After that things dried up and she is still amazed that her fortunes have turned around.

“I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t auditioned for Trainspotting. Getting into acting is hard for someone from my background. Not knowing anyone who does that kind of thing, where do you start?” she said.

“[I grew up in a] suburb [of Glasgow] where people at the bus stop asked you why you were going into the town… So I suppose I had the drive to go to town, and get out.”