We spoke to the cast of Netflix’s new historical epic, Outlaw King. The film follows the life of Robert the Bruce, the legendary Scottish king who secured Scottish independence from the English.
Chris Pine, in the starring role, was drawn to the production because “it was a challenge I couldn’t turn down. The man is 600 or so years old, and to pin down who this man was, was more difficult than I thought; but I tried to do justice to the script that was given to me and to the character on the page.”
Beyond a historical retelling, James Cosmo states, “I think [Outlaw King] addresses issues of honour and loyalty and family, and I think those attributes are as important now as they were then. And to see it with large, powerful men and characters, it’s like the Romans watching the gladiators, the Spanish watching the bull-fighters… It says, this is how a man should be.”
As a Scottish actor, Cosmo was drawn to the project because of its status as “a seminal part of Scottish history. And the character, he represents Scotland. It was lovely to be a part of that. I think people will like watching heroic men, who aren’t superheroes but rather just heroes, real men who took real risks for things that they believed in. And I think that’s always a good thing for us to watch and try to emulate in some small way.”
Chris Pine however, himself far from Scottish said that he early on “gave up trying to be a perfect Scotsman quite early on, because I figured I would be crucified by some people anyway.” Yet he did have “an incredible dialect coach, I had worked with mostly Scottish men in the largest fraternity of all time, and they were brutally honest with me and kept me in line. And I lived in Glasgow for four months and tried to soak up as much as I could.”
The wildest acting to look forward to in this treat of a movie is Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s portrayal of James Douglas, one of the chief commanders at Robert’s side. “I think it’s also that my process kinda differs from others, and I think the way I like to do it is to stay in character as much as possible while I’m on set, for sure,” explains Taylor-Johnson. “And it was very emotional and dark, and they were pretty relentless shoots. There’s a lot you carry with you and you have to somehow shed that. That’s just how the job goes sometimes.”
Outlaw King is available to stream on Netflix now.
First published on The National Student