British Actresses You Should Know: Kelly Macdonald
This month, the sixth season of the wildly popular British police procedural Line of Duty made its American debut on BritBox. Each series features a guest star who finds themselves in hot water with the show’s anti-corruption unit helmed by Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar). Joining the ranks of LOD alums Lennie James, Keely Hawes, Daniel Mays, Thandiwe Newton, and Stephen Graham is Kelly Macdonald which is more than enough of a reason to highlight this talented actress.
Unlike many of the folks we profile in this series, the Glasgow-born Macdonald had no formal drama training when she nabbed her first screen role in one of the most iconic British films of the 1990s. Let’s take a look at some of the memorable performances on Kelly’s impressive resume.
Trainspotting (1996)
Macdonald’s earliest on-screen credit was in Danny Boyle‘s black comedy-drama Trainspotting, which follows the struggles and hijinks of a group of heroin addicts in a down-and-out district of Edinburgh. She was just a 19-year-old barmaid in Glasgow which she landed the part of Diane, Mark Renton’s (Ewan McGregor) underage girlfriend, in an open casting call.
Fun fact: McDonald made a cameo appearance in the 2017 sequel, T2 Trainspotting, where she reprised her role as Diane who had become a solicitor in the intervening years between films.
