Macfadyen hopes Robert the Bruce film will boost support for independence

Actor Angus Macfadyen has said he hopes his new film Robert the Bruce will boost support for Scottish independence.

Macfadyen reprises the role he first played in Braveheart in the film, which received its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Sunday.

The actor, a vocal supporter of independence on social media, said it was time for Scots to be “masters of our own destiny” and called for the country to do it soon.

He attended the premiere with other stars including Anna Hutchinson, Zach McGowan, Mhairi Calvey and Lulu, who sings over the end credits.

Asked whether he hopes the film will boost support for independence, Macfadyen said: “I hope so. When I wrote it in 2006 I wanted to get it out the next year but the circumstances of that were out of my hands and now that we’re in 2019 with all the events that have happened, Brexit, the independence referendum, it just feels like the time is perfect, this moment in time for it to come out and be sort of a cultural event which Scottish people can go and see in the cinema.

“There’s so much political talk and so much anger and fury on Twitter and all of these things and I just think that a film can tell a story about people and can talk about the human condition and remind you that we’re all in the same boat at the end of the day.

“We need to be masters of our own destiny at this point I think and we should do it soon.

“I’m hoping Nicola Sturgeon has set the groundwork for it so that we can make that move.”

He welcomed the film opening in Edinburgh, saying: “The director and I pushed for it to be opened here so that Scots could see it first because it’s a film for Scotland and about Scotland and after that we’ll see where it goes.”

Macfadyen has drawn attention with his support of Scottish independence on social media.

He caused controversy last month when he asked how many people would be ready to “lay down” their lives for what is coming.

The actor played Robert the Bruce in Braveheart in 1995 and said it was not difficult to take up the role in the new film, which he co-wrote.

Directed by Richard Gray, it tells the story of the king in the months after his forces are decimated and he takes shelter with a woman and her children who help nurse him back to health as he finds the resolve to lead the Scots to independence.

Macfadyen said: “It was something I just fell back into. It was something I’d been living with for so long that I didn’t really have to think about it.”

The film’s world premiere took place at the Vue Omni cinema in Edinburgh ahead of its release on June 28.