EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – Like his “Brave” co-star Kelly Macdonald, Kevin McKidd was first introduced to most viewers in Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting” and, also like Macdonald, McKidd makes his primary living covering up his native Scottish accent for a successful television show.
On ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” McKidd plays tightly wound, periodically traumatized, entirely American Owen Hunt. Emotional repression aside, it’s a strong role for McKidd, but when we sat down at Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel for the junket for “Brave,” he admitted how fun it is to just let loose in the recording booth.
In “Brave,” McKidd plays Scottish clan leader Lord MacGuffin, as well as his seemingly dim-witted son, one of three suitors to Macdonald’s Merida. On the surface, Young MacGuffin seems to almost completely incoherent, but as McKidd explains, the character is actually speaking a specific dialect that runs in the actor’s bloodlines.
Neither role is huge, but McKidd told me that he’s been working on “Brave” for four years, a project that he compares to being a secret agent.
[We also discussed “Grey’s Anatomy” just a wee bit and what that conversation isn’t in the “Brave”-centric interview above, it’s excerpted below!]
Hopefully you’ve already watched my interview with the charming Kelly MacDonald. And stay tuned over the next couple days for my conversations with Pixar chief John Lasseter and with “Brave” director Mark Andrews & producer Katherine Sarafian. And yes, I’m still planning on posting the embarrassing video of my archery attempts in Scotland.
“Brave” opens on Friday, June 22.