Achi news desk-
Over the years, the Bellshill-born star has carved out a successful career playing TV and film baddies, the kind of chilling and terrifying characters that haunt your nightmares long after you’ve finished watching.
They include organized crime group “OCG” supremo Tommy Hunter in the hit series Line of Duty and ruthless bully Jackson Jones in Jimmy McGovern’s starkly bleak prison drama Time.
Then there was McCardie’s portrayal of madman and Edinburgh police detective Dougie Gillman in the 2013 film adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Filth, a part described as making Trainspotting’s Begbie “look like a Disney character”.
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Still, off the screen the 58-year-old actor longs for a life that is much quieter and less exciting. “I guess I’m pretty boring,” he said. “I like to go to work, do my best and come home.”
Home these days is Bute where, in his spare time, McCardie enjoys photography, writing poetry and being amongst nature.
A smile creeps into his voice. “I see seals and otters and dolphins and the occasional nuclear submarine,” he laughs. “But, as I know nothing about nature, I decided to name all the birds myself. Whatever name comes to mind, that’s what they are.
“I’m like the antithesis of David Attenborough. You can’t count on one thing I say. ‘I’m impatient’ goes, ‘See that up there? That’s a bald-headed black eagle…’ And maybe it’ll be a crow or a buzzard. But I don’t care. That’s one of the ways I amuse myself.
“Bute is a beautiful place. I love it here. I’m happy to be quiet. It seems to have a microclimate. And you can see the stars much more clearly than in a city. I know nothing about star constellations, but I have an app that does that.”
McCardie is a gregarious interviewee. In his own words he could “gibber for Scotland”, although that might be doing himself a disservice. His answers are usually thoughtful and honest. He’s also great fun to chat with, and has a sharp sense of humour.
As we begin our conversation, McCardie puts me on speakerphone and wants to check I can hear him properly. “It’s like f****** Star Trek,” he quips.
Back in March when we speak, the focus is a project dear to his heart. Dog Days, which had its world premiere at the 2023 Glasgow Film Festival and is being broadcast on BBC Scotland this week, is the first feature-length drama from Scottish writer and director James Price. , dubbed “Scorsese’s Springburn”.
Set in Dundee, the poignant story follows a homeless busboy “fighting against the odds to get his life back on track and see his young daughter again”.
Its impressive cast includes McCardie alongside Conor McCarron, who previously starred in Neds, Scottish Mussel and Calibre. The lineup also includes Lois Chimimba (Vigil, Trust Me) and new talent Shannon Allan (whom McCardie compares to Kate Dickie).
McCardie’s character is, true to form, a misfit. “The fella I play is a street entrepreneur – a pimp and a drug dealer,” he says. “He will commit extortion and blackmail. He is someone who lives to his heart’s content and will not take any challenge whatsoever to his supremacy.”
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Dog Days was really special to work on, McCardie said. “The thing about James is that he directs actors by giving them the feeling that, although he is the captain of the ship, they are the acting experts in the room.
“Much like Martin Scorsese’s direction, he emphasizes that the lines he has written are a blueprint and it’s perfectly fine if you deviate from those lines, as long as you keep the meaning.
“What’s so smart about that is that the actors take ownership of their own little piece of the puzzle. There is an added responsibility to give him the very best ideas you can offer.
“It just so happens that James is a very good writer, which means that 95 per cent of the time you’re just saying his lines anyway, but the mental trick is responsibility and the illusion of freedom. It’s very clever this way.”
This was the third time McCardie and Price had worked together. They previously teamed up on the Bafta-nominated Scottish short film Dropping Off Michael and a music video for Zopa, the indie-rock band co-founded by American actor Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos.
McCardie is certainly a busy man. This year alone, he has appeared in a quartet of big name dramas on ITV: Six Four, The Tower, Crime Irvine Welsh and The Long Shadow.
It’s also the BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy, due to hit our screens soon, and the upcoming film Damaged, an action thriller starring Samuel L Jackson, Kate Dickie and John Hannah.
When we speak, McCardie is apologetically tight-lipped on these projects. “It’s not like James Bond/Star Wars secrecy – I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes,” he said.
So far, his journey as an actor has seen two different acts. There was a time between the mid-1990s and early 2000s when McCardie appeared in a stream of Hollywood films.
He enjoyed fame on both sides of the Atlantic in Rob Roy as Alasdair, younger brother of the title character played by Liam Neeson. Then came roles such as The Ghost and the Darkness, Speed 2: Cruise Control and 200 Cigarettes.
But something wasn’t right with McCardie. He brings this up when asked about any regrets during his career.
“This was 20 or 25 years ago, but I was on a path where I had done five Hollywood films in four years,” he recalls. “And then I walked away from the industry completely for maybe five or six years. I fired my agent so I couldn’t be contacted and left the industry entirely.
“I’m not sure if I regret it or not because I did it for the right reasons, I believed at the time. If you look back over life, you think, ‘Well Brian, that was crazy financially…’ But it was the right decision for me.”
Did he need a break? “No, it was more to do with the fact that I found it quite sordid and Machiavellian and I was pressured to sculpt myself into some kind of person who was nothing similar to me
“I think my representatives at the time were trying to put me in a box. You know, you’ve got a six pack and you’re well built with a chiseled jawline. Be a kind of prototype, young actor. And I wasn’t interested in playing an idealized version of people.
“So, that’s it. To an outside observer, they would say I was crazy. It was definitely the right thing to do because I was in serious danger of becoming someone I couldn’t live with.”
Was he afraid of losing himself? McCardie makes no bones about his feelings on the subject. “I was turning into an aw***** and I didn’t like that.”
McCardie believes the TV and film industry is a healthier and happier place now than it was when he first started, crediting many of these changes to the next generation of acting talent coming through the ranks .
“Since #MeToo reared its ugly head, the consequences of that – and the younger generation driving it – is that they will not accept being infantilized or silenced. They don’t even understand the concept.
“When I was younger, if you stood up for yourself or made a complaint about abuse from a director or whatever, you were sort of unofficially blacklisted. But the younger generation, the first thing they do is form a WhatsApp group and they all have each other’s backs.
“It’s hard to blacklist an entire cast. So the vast majority of decent employers now have problems exposed to them in a non-crisis way. That way of working seems more respectful towards everyone involved.”
It’s a refreshing perspective because young people today are often dismissed as clueless about how the world works. “Oh no, it’s quite the opposite – I’m so impressed,” McCardie said. “They are fully informed. They know who they are and what they want. They know what is acceptable and unacceptable.
“If there are things that are maybe new to me from that generation, they don’t treat me like a fool or someone out of touch. They explain very plainly and openly whatever the thinking is, and I think it’s great. I’m really enjoying working with the generation that’s coming up after me.”
Dog Days is on BBC Scotland, Wednesday, 10.30pm. Also available on BBC iPlayer
