<\/p>\n
Brothers Kevin and Andrew Macdonald discussed their respective careers in an ever-shifting film industry on Sunday at the Edinburgh International Film Festival<\/a>\u2018s keynote session.<\/p>\n Kevin Macdonald, an Oscar winner for his feature-length documentary One Day in September<\/em> (1999), is also known for his fiction work, including The Last King of Scotland <\/em>(2006) and State of Play <\/em>(2009), as well as Touching the Void <\/em>(2003) and How I Live Now <\/em>(2013). Andrew Macdonald, meanwhile, is a producer best known for his collaborations with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland on the likes of Trainspotting <\/em>(1996), The Beach <\/em>(2000), Ex Machina <\/em>(2014) and the 28 Days Later <\/em>franchise.<\/p>\n More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n The session, hosted by Edinburgh TV Festival boss Rowan Woods, began with a blast from the past: the brothers\u2019 short film that saw them as 20-something-year-olds interview the creatives \u2014\u00a0including Robbie Coltrane, Sam Fuller and Michael Winner \u2014\u00a0at the 1992 Edinburgh Film Festival. The pair were pressing industry names on how to get Shallow Grave <\/em>made. At the end, Sean Connery stars over the phone; Kevin had managed to get hold of the Scottish actor in his trailer while he shot 1993\u2019s Rising Sun <\/em>in L.A.<\/p>\n The conversation spanned a myriad of topics, namely the projects they are most proud of and the inner workings of getting some of the 21st century\u2019s biggest films over the line. Kevin Macdonald spoke candidly about working with Hollywood A-listers for the first time on political thriller State of Play<\/em>. After months of rewriting the script with Tony Gilroy (and spending a lot of money), \u201c[We] gave it to Brad Pitt,\u201d Macdonald explained. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018I hate it.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat was just the beginning of a long, very Hollywood [experience],\u201d he laughed. \u201cA certain kind of wasteful Hollywood filmmaking, where they were trying to make intelligent and good films,\u201d he added, referencing how an entire sound stage was knocked through in L.A. instead of shooting on location in Washington D.C., because Pitt wanted to stay near his family. But Pitt\u2019s role eventually went to Russell Crowe, anyway.<\/p>\n Macdonald said about feeling out of his depth filming with huge stars: \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m saying anything out of turn to say that Russell Crowe is quite a difficult man and he would intimidate the studio to such a degree that they wouldn\u2019t actually want to come to set.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI would say to the studio, \u2018Oh my god, this is a nightmare,’\u201d he laughed again, \u201c\u2018I can\u2019t control this, man, we\u2019re spending all this money,\u2019 and they\u2019re saying, \u2018You\u2019re doing great.’\u201d<\/p>\n He also revealed he had to push for Forest Whitaker to be cast in The Last King of Scotland<\/em>: \u201cHe came in so keen to do this,\u201d he recalled. \u201cHe felt compelled to do this part\u2026 I saw this very gentle, spiritual man, but there\u2019s something dark, and that was, I think, what he wanted to express. I remember going to Fox Searchlight. They\u2019d said, \u2018Forest is totally wrong. He\u2019s so gentle and sweet. He can\u2019t be right.’\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cIt became a bit of a battle. In the end, they relented. It\u2019s one of those great things in life when your actor goes on to win an Oscar, and Searchlight have to admit that you were right. That doesn\u2019t happen very often.\u201d His brother Andrew managed to sneak into the Oscars\u2019 Vanity Fair <\/em>party that year, pretending to be Kevin, the siblings also revealed, where he gave an interview as Kevin to British broadcaster Sky News<\/em>.<\/p>\n When asked what kind of projects he finds are worth pursuing in the current climate, Andrew simply gave thanks for finding Garland: \u201cI\u2019ve been very fortunate in the last 10 years, to work with this guy who can come up with a script, literally, in 24 hours. So we spent a lot of time producing his films, what he wants to do, and out of that has come a very good relationship with A24, and that\u2019s really the majority of what we\u2019ve done. Every so often, something comes up that fits in.\u201d<\/p>\n On the difficulty of filming 28 Years Later <\/em>and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple <\/em>back to back, Andrew said: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t hard, because there\u2019s some key actors that were in first [part]. That\u2019s why we did it back-to-back. I think the director of the second film, she probably did the hardest thing \u2014\u00a0because she had to take some elements that were already in place, that weren\u2019t necessarily her [\u2026] choice,\u201d he said about Nia DaCosta, whose installment is set for release in January 2026.<\/p>\n The pair fielded a series of questions from the audience towards the end of the session, where Kevin expressed he thought a lot of people in the industry are \u201coverly despondent\u201d about the impact of AI.<\/p>\n The filmmaker also said he would love to be making Richard Linklater\u2019s Merrily We Roll Along<\/em>, filmed across 20 years with Paul Mescal and Ben Platt. \u201cWhat a wonderful idea,\u201d he said. \u201cThat would be so much fun to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025 runs Aug. 14-20.<\/em><\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brothers Kevin and Andrew Macdonald discussed their respective careers in an ever-shifting film industry on Sunday at the Edinburgh International Film Festival\u2018s keynote session. Kevin Macdonald, an Oscar winner for his feature-length documentary One Day in September (1999), is also known for his fiction work, including The Last King of Scotland (2006) and State of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1965782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[347743,347742,25825,347744,310293,346780,347747,345415,34395,344805,347748,339676,347746,347745],"class_list":["post-1965781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-alex-garland","tag-andrew-macdonald","tag-brad-pitt","tag-brothers-kevin","tag-danny-boyle","tag-edinburgh-international-film-festival","tag-ex-machina","tag-film-industry","tag-hollywood-reporter","tag-kevin-macdonald","tag-michael-winner","tag-russell-crowe","tag-state-of-play","tag-the-last-king-of-scotland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/He-Said-\u2018I-Hate-It.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1965781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1965782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1965781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1965781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1965781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}