AFTER years living south of the Border, Denis Lawson has revealed that his Scottish accent is now stronger than ever – thanks to his second wife. The actor, best known for Local Hero, married fellow Scot Karen Prentice on a remote Italian beach last summer after a whirlwind romance.
In an exclusive interview with The Scottish Mail on Sunday, the 70-year-old, who lost first wife Sheila Gish to cancer in 2005, spoke candidly about finding new love ‘unexpectedly’ late in life.
He disclosed that, in an unlikely twist, the pair didn’t meet on a film set or at a showbiz party – but in Lawson’s home town of Crieff in Perthshire.
The Olivier award winner, currently on a UK tour of stage show Art, also spoke about being known as ‘Ewan McGregor’s uncle’.
He was already a veteran of the stage and screen when his nephew was catapulted into the limelight 22 years ago in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. Yet there is no hint of jealousy as he tells of his pride at McGregor’s ‘meteoric rise’.
Recalling how he and Miss Prentice met, Lawson said: ‘Strangely enough, it was in Crieff. Karen was actually a neighbour of my dear mother, who lived in Crieff until she died 18 months ago.
‘We had met in passing over the years, as you do, but two years ago it just developed. It was very surprising but we are very happy. I sound more Scottish now than I have for years because of her. I’m living with a real Scot.
‘In the past I have mostly lived with and been married to posh English women, but Karen is from the North-East of Scotland and has a strong accent. Sometimes when she uses Doric words, I have no idea what she’s talking about.’
Of their wedding, he said: ‘We married on a beach in Italy at the end of July. It’s right on the French border and only locals go there because you have to know how to get to it, which I love.
‘We didn’t want some big thing and it was very intimate, with just close friends and family. It was at eight o’clock at night, about two feet from the sea and it was all in Italian – which was all very romantic. However, as we don’t speak Italian I’m not quite sure what we agreed to!’
Mrs Lawson will join her husband as he tours with Yasmina Reza’s award-winning comedy Art, which comes to Glasgow next week.
He plays cultural snob Marc, who objects when best friend Serge (Nigel Havers) spends a small fortune on a plain white painting.
In reality, Lawson is quite the opposite. He said: ‘I’m not like my character in that sense. I actually prefer contem- porary art to classical art. I wouldn’t say I’m crazy about Damien Hirst’s dead sheep in a box, but I love abstract pieces.
‘My character is a French intellectual who thinks highly of himself – and I’m not like that. I am pretty down to earth. I was born in a tenement flat in a tough part of Glasgow with a lavvy in the stair.’
Lawson spent the first three years of his life in the shipbuilding heartland of Govan before a ‘spur of the moment’ decision by his watchmaker father to move to Crieff.
It was there he met the stern headmaster of Crieff Primary School. He recalled: ‘I wasn’t very good at school. I wasn’t academic at all but I was lucky we got the chance to do a lot of drama.
‘The headmaster was some man. He was very imposing, wore a morning suit with a starched collar and used to belt us for being late and making too much noise. But he taught the choir and taught us to mime and perform creative dance.
‘I hadn’t even heard of drama school until I was about 14. In those days, it wasn’t really a career choice. But I think I was always going to be on stage – and it was the same with Ewan.’
Lawson’s eyes light up when he tells how a young McGregor came to ask him for tips after landing his first screen role in Channel 4 series Lipstick on Your Collar in 1993. He said: ‘He called me up and said, “I’ve got this fantastic TV part… what happens in TV?”. He had no idea what happened on set, not a clue, as he had stage training.
‘He was lost, so we sat for about an hour and a half and I gave him pointers. He then got me to come in and talk to his class about it.’
Lawson first realized his nephew was going to make it big after watching him play Orlando in As You Like It at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. He said: ‘It was in modern dress with terrible strip lighting but I sat there and said to myself, “Oh my God, this guy is way above the rest”.
‘Ewan was so charismatic and gave a beautiful performance. But I didn’t tell his parents. I didn’t want to raise their expectations in case it didn’t happen but I realized he was going to make it – and he did, even faster than I imagined.
‘It was meteoric. As soon as he hit Danny Boyle, he was away.
‘It doesn’t bother me I’m known as “Ewan McGregor’s uncle”. I’m so proud of him, what he’s done and what he’s doing – and we have a great relationship.
‘To him I’ll always be Uncle Denis. We were in a film together for the first time in 2011, Perfect Sense, and it was quite surreal when I walked into the dressing room and he shouted over, “Hello, Uncle Denis”. We got our make-up done together but when we walked on set it became professional.’
LAWSON got a taste for theatre at family gatherings at which everyone would perform their ‘party piece’. He said: ‘I grew up surrounded by song and dance. It was inevitable the family would throw up an actor or two. I’m also related to actress Molly Weir – she was a cousin of my grandmother.
‘We’re like a Scottish version of the Fox dynasty, albeit from somewhat more humble beginnings.’
After he finishes the Art tour, Lawson plans to ‘return to Italy to lie on a beach for three weeks’. But has no plans to retire – he enjoys the ‘buzz’ of performing too much.
He said: ‘My preference has always been to do a great variety of things. I have done panto in Perth and avant garde in Amsterdam.
‘I may be 70 but I look after myself and feel good. I do pilates, I eat pretty well most of the time and I have good genes.’
Art, Theatre Royal, Glasgow, April 9-14.
.jpg)
