Ewan McGregor said reprising Mark Renton in 2017’s T2 Trainspotting gave him an existential crisis because he feared he was no longer sufficiently Scottish to portray the character convincingly. The concern mattered because Renton is one of McGregor’s best-known roles, and the sequel reunited him with the world and collaborators of the acclaimed 1996 film.

McGregor had lived outside Scotland since leaving at 17 for drama school, spending years in London and later Los Angeles, though he still returned regularly to see family. He said Renton felt particularly Scottish and that the character’s return to Edinburgh from Amsterdam echoed his own sense of coming back; he also reconnected with director Danny Boyle after a long estrangement following The Beach.