Robert Carlyle calls Trainspotting 2 one of the best scripts he’s ever read

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

It's taken quite some time, but the sequel to TRAINSPOTTING looks like it's ready to go. Ewan McGregor recently said that the film was almost 100% sure and all that remained to be worked out was the scheduling. Much of the old gang will return for the sequel which has Danny Boyle directing a script from original TRAINSPOTTING writer John Hodge. Robert Carlyle, who starred in TRAINSPOTTING alongside Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, and Ewen Bremner, spoke with NME and bestowed some lofty praise on the sequel's script.

Yeah, we've already had a read-through of the script, we did that in the springtime. You're going to think, 'Of course he’s going to say this,' but honestly, it's one of the best scripts I've f**king read. I mean, ever. What John Hodge has done is just so clever.

We don't have many details on the script, but the film is said to be "loosely based on Irvine Welsh's Porno, the literary follow-up that finds the same characters involved in the porn film business about 10 years later." Carlyle obviously wouldn't spill anything, but he believes that having a sequel take place so long after the original will help to give it a unique quality.

Well, obviously these four characters are 20 years older now and I've never seen a sequel that takes place 20 years after the original, so I think that gives it a certain unique quality. And of course, the audience is 20 years older too – people who came to see the original film when they were in their early twenties are very different people now. And the way John Hodge has put this thing down, obviously with the help of Danny Boyle, is to make it about how the characters' lives have moved on… or have they? Without giving anything away, maybe some of them haven't really moved on. That's what the audience is going to have to go through with them. I tell you, this film is going to be quite emotional for people. Because the film sort of tells you to think about yourself. You are going to be thinking: 'F**k. What have I done with my life?'

Robert Carlyle admitted to being tense at the thought of following up TRAINSPOTTING with a sequel, but said that "if anyone can pull it off it’s Danny Boyle." Production on the TRAINSPOTTING sequel is expected to begin next summer.