Edinburgh Filmhouse: Denis Lawson 'thrilled' as he makes surprise appearance for Local Hero screening

Lawson, who starred as Gordon in 1983 Scottish film classic Local Hero, told audience members it was a “happy accident” that he had been invited to the screening as a guest of his sister, while the title of the film to be shown was kept under wraps.

Trainspotting star Ewan Bremner and his actor daughter, Harmony Rose-Bremner, also spoke at the event on Sunday evening, where they credited the Filmhouse with having a major impact on their careers. The cinema re-opened at the weekend, following two-and-a-half years of closure.

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Introducing Local Hero, Lawson said: “It is a happy and complete accident that my big sister suggested I came here this evening. I'm delighted to come. I did not know what you're about to see.

“This particular movie, in my 50-year career, is unique for me. I enjoyed it in a way I’ve never enjoyed another job. The script that Bill Forsyth wrote is pretty special and I was thrilled to get the role.”

He also paid tribute to the performance of his co-star Peter Capaldi.

“It was the first time he ever had an acting job, he was a rock band before,” he said. “And what a great eye Bill Forsyth had, because it's a beautiful performance and he's going on to do, you know, OK.”

Lawson described the connection between the cast, who he said would “go to a hotel and have a few drinks” after a day’s shooting. He also said he had later discovered that his wife, whom he met years later when she was a neighbour of his mother, had grown up in the area Local Hero was filmed - and recalled being “stuck on her horse”, unable to access the local village because of the film shoot.

He said: “I'm thrilled to be here, for the complete accident that was showing the movie that was an extraordinary, special experience for me.”

Bremner thanked the Filmhouse team for “bringing this cinema back“.

“I benefited an unmeasurable amount from experiencing film here,” Mr Bremner said.

He said a screening of Blades of Desire at the Filmhouse when he was 16 “blew my mind”.

“There are so many films I’ve seen that only come to the Filmhouse, that don’t come to the mainstream cinemas and the programming Filmhouse provide is just kaleidoscopic,” he said.

“There’s nothing like it. It’s been a big part of my education, as someone who trained as an actor.”

He recalled visiting the cinema with his daughter, Harmony, “many times”.

“Now she’s become an actor,” he said. He recounted bringing her to see a Woody Allen film when she was young, but being stopped by a Filmhouse usher, who said “she’s too young”.

“The usher was dead right,” he said. “And we had to go.”

Ms Bremner, who has appeared in Amazon Prime series Fifteen Love, as well as performing in theatre performances in London, added: “The Filmhouse has been a big part in my education of cinema and a real expanding of my horizons of what film can be. It’s not mainstream stuff that comes here and that means delving into completely new worlds. Cinema is really a place where you do go to escape.

“This place has been really monumental in my education as an actor and I'm so happy to see it reopen.”

Andrew Simpson, executive director of Filmhouse, said the screening choice of Local Hero had come about in a “preordained, strange way”.

With a new re-release of the film from the British Film Institute, he said director Ginny Atkinson had also recently been awarded the Scottish Parliament’s Local Hero award.

Then, by chance, the Filmhouse invited Lawson’s sister to the event, who asked if she could bring her brother.

“We, of course, said ‘yes, and that was fine’,” Mr Simpson said. “He was coming, but he had absolutely no knowledge of what the film was that we were going to be showing today.”

Isabel Davis, director of Screen Scotland said: “This isn't just about nostalgia or the resurrection of the beloved Edinburgh institution. It’s about the vital contemporary role Filmhouse will continue to play.

“Audiences young and old need to have a place to discover and enjoy film, hone their taste, understand and take risks beyond the mainstream and, in doing so, live vicariously beyond their own borders, expand their horizons and rejoice in diversity and the commonality of the human condition.”