Interview: Stars of new film set in 1990s Scotland dubbed ‘heir to Trainspotting’

Cristian Ortega (left) and Lorna Macdonald (right).

They are rising stars of the Scottish acting world who have been the best of friends since drama school.

Now their onscreen relationship is set to propel them into the limelight as lifelong pals seemingly destined to go their separate ways in a movie already being hailed as the “heir” to Trainspotting.

Central characters Johnno and Spanner will bring the curtain down on the Glasgow Film Festival tonight at the UK premiere of Beats.

If the buzz it has attracted since a world premiere in Rotterdam keeps building, it is set to make stars out of Cristian Ortega and Lorn Macdonald.

Both graduates of Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, they have the lead roles in the “platonic love story” focusing on two teenagers from a West Lothian housing estate who are drawn to an illegal rave at a time when the Conservative Government had ordered an unprecedented clampdown on such gatherings.

Ortega was urged to audition for the role of Johnno while on tour with the National Theatre of Scotland in the US after Macdonald had spent weeks preparing for the role, only to be told he was better suited as Spanner.

Shot in black and white and set to a soundtrack supervised by Scottish clubbing pioneer JD Twitch, Beats has obvious echoes with Trainspotting, including being set in 1994 – between the release of Irvine Welsh’s novel and Danny Boyle’s film – and the cultural revolution sweeping Britain during the birth of “New Labour” and “Cool Britannia”.

Macdonald had also just finished playing Mark Renton, the role Ewan McGregor played on screen, in a 2017 stage production of Trainspotting when he saw a tweet from Ken Loach’s Sixteen Films company looking for young actors to audition for Beats, which is released in May.

Adapted by Brian Welsh and Kieran Hurley from the latter’s one-man play for The Arches in Glasgow, Beats charts the events that unfold after Johnno tells Spanner his family is moving away - but is persuaded to head out on one last night together.

Macdonald, who plays Spanner, said: “It is a friendship story, but for me it is definitely a love story. That’s the way I looked at it when we were making it. These characters absolutely need each other, but especially Spanner. His life without Johnno is a very sad one. Spanner is just your typical lovable rogue. He’s caught between the idea of what masculinity is and what’s expected of him as a member of a pretty radge family, and being a deeply honourable, sensitive and vulnerable young man. The whole world’s against him, except Johnno, who sees him for who he is. He’ll hold onto that as long as he can.”

Ortega, 28, said: “At its core, it’s a platonic love story between these two friends, set against a political background, when the times are changing. What I really like about it is the personal colliding with the political.

“Johnno is like the perfect distillation of teenage angst and fear of not fitting in and not knowing your place in the world.