Ewen Bremner makes awkward, put-upon men funny without asking us to dismiss them. We value his warmth and comic timing; the danger is casting him for his oddness and stopping there.
Fi1m perspective
Spud’s speed-fuelled job interview in Trainspotting (1996) is a good place to watch Ewen Bremner work. His comic timing makes the agitation funny, but he keeps the man’s vulnerability in view. Danny Boyle understands the value of that warmth among these Edinburgh addicts. Bremner gives us a reason to care about someone the film could easily have treated as a joke.
Boyle also lets Spud’s comedy sit uneasily beside Robert Carlyle’s Begbie, rather than asking the actors to produce the same sort of laugh. Ewan McGregor’s Renton makes the group easy to spend time with; Bremner helps make leaving it feel difficult. We laughed at their jokes, then felt uncomfortable because the actors had made their daily routine so easy to accept. Our reservation about Trainspotting is that its editing sometimes moves past suffering too quickly. Bremner’s attention to the person beneath the comic behaviour is one reason we want it to slow down.
He had already played Renton on stage in 1994, before taking Spud in the film. That change of part is worth remembering when the screen role threatens to account for an entire career. Mike Leigh’s Naked (1993), in which he plays Archie opposite David Thewlis, offered an earlier outlet for his intense, tic-ridden character work. Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) later put him at the centre of an experimental film, working with an American accent and extended improvisation. There is more here than a dependable supporting eccentric, even if that remains the part he is often asked to supply.
The move into Hollywood action included Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001), alongside McGregor. The appeal of that casting is plain, but so is the risk of using him only to supply a little oddness. A film can rely on those physical mannerisms and neglect to give him much else to play. Returning to Spud in T2 Trainspotting (2017) brought him back to a character with more than comic usefulness. Start with Trainspotting, then try Julien Donkey-Boy before deciding that Spud tells us everything.
Biography
Ewen Bremner is a Scottish actor. He is best known for playing Daniel 'Spud' Murphy in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting (1996) and its sequel T2 Trainspotting (2017).
Born on 23 January 1972 in Edinburgh, the son of two art teachers, Bremner attended Davidson's Mains Primary School and Portobello High School. He made his screen debut in Heavenly Pursuits (1986) and originated the role of Mark Renton in a 1994 stage production of Trainspotting.
His other film credits include Snatch (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), Pearl Harbor (2001), Wonder Woman (2017) and Snowpiercer (2013). He received the BAFTA Scotland award for Best Actor for T2 Trainspotting.
