Disney●Pixar’s “Brave” reigns supreme for a 2nd week proving its summer holiday mettle with box office takings of £14.9 million, keeping “The Bourne Legacy” firmly at bay. With an all-star UK voice cast including Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Robbie Coltrane, Kevin McKidd and Julie Walters “Brave” represents Pixar’s most daring, sophisticated and complex feature film to date. It also establishes numerous firsts for a Pixar film. It is the studio’s first film to feature a female protagonist, its first period piece in which historical references intersect with a fantasy world, and its first epic adventure set in a natural human world and has proven itself to be another Pixar hit. read the full article here
Disney • Pixar’s latest comedy adventure “Brave” took a whopping £8.2 million winning the number one spot at the UK box office.... read the full story here
BRAVE Interview: Robbie Coltrane and Kevin McKidd talk accents, profanity and spears in the eye Back in June, as the 66th Edinburgh International Film Festival was coming to a close, HeyUGuys sat down with two of the stars of the festival’s highly anticipated closing film, Pixar’s Brave. In a quiet conference room on the second floor of Edinburgh’s grand Balmoral Hotel, Robbie Coltrane and Kevin McKidd – who play Lord Dingwall and practically the entire MacGuffin patriarchy in the film, respectively – were discussing musicals. Having last seen The Producers, Coltrane was singing the praises of star Nathan Lane, while McKidd spoke fondly of a recent outing to see Peter and the Star Catcher. Asked if he had ever been tempted to take to the stage, Coltrane replied that he’d never been asked. Actually, come to think of it… read the full interview here
 On a scorching afternoon in LA, I’m in a cinema in The Grove, the city’s swanky open-air shopping mall. I feel a bit strange. Not because I’m a solitary man at a showing of a kids’ cartoon, although that’s weird enough. (Weirder still: there are other unaccompanied blokes in the darkened theatre. What’s their excuse?) No, I’m welling up because Brave, the latest animation from Pixar, is giving me, a Scotsman, thousands of miles from heart and hearth, a severe dose of homesickness. Brave is that kind of film: a love letter to a romanticised, Hollywood vision of Scotland, centred on the volatile relationship between a rebellious kid and her mother. Even if the kid is a flame-haired tomboy princess (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) in a mythical Caledonia of witches, sword-wielding clansmen and murderous bears, while the mum is a graceful queen (Emma Thompson) married to a one-legged warrior-king (Billy Connolly), I relate. Kevin McKidd knows the feeling. So does his one-time Trainspotting co-star Ewan McGregor. In Brave, McKidd, born and raised in the Highlands, is the voice of clan chief Lord MacGuffin and his son Young MacGuffin. The latter is a suitor of heroine Princess Merida, brought to sparky life by Macdonald, another Trainspotting alumnus. McKidd gives both characters an accent close to his own, with an added topspin of ‘teuchter’ (the Scottish word for a yokel). print of the article and photosRead the full article here
Disney-Pixar’s Brave finally opens on “home” turf this week, as the year’s most Scottish film lands in cinemas from Orkney to Galashiels. For Scottish audiences, used to hearing the accent getting mangled on screen ( Brigadoon anyone?), Disney-Pixars’ decision to use Scottish actors, including Robbie Coltrane and Kevin McKidd as Lords Dingwall and MacGuffin respectively, is a welcome one. The Lords and their sons are seen to arrive at DunBroch Castle, home of Merida (Kelly Macdonald) and her parents, King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), just before things start to go very wrong in the Kingdom. One thing immediately noticeable in Brave is that the actors haven’t been forced to tone down their accents, at least not too much. read the full artilce here
THOUGH he doesn’t see himself as a big star, rejecting the title ‘Doctor McHunky’, Kevin McKidd is certainly in demand, playing two parts in Pixar’s latest release, Brave. KEVIN McKidd and I are sitting in one of Edinburgh’s poshest hotels, home-made shortbread untouched, as we gaze at a panorama of drizzle. Below us, a street entrepreneur is doing a roaring trade in brollies for pac-a-maced tourists seeking an upgrade, and a bagpiper has elected to serenade the roadworkers ploughing half of Princes Street. On days like this, Kevin, don’t you long to come home? “I do miss being here, I really do,” he says immediately. “I lived in Glasgow for four years and Edinburgh for four years and I’m from the Highlands, you know? I split my missing into loads of different places, because I’m connected to it all.” McKidd is from Elgin, where one of his first jobs, at 17, was building swan-necked copper boilers at the Glenmorangie distillery to pay for drama school in Edinburgh. “I was in Sandy Bell’s pub last night, and I shared a flat with my girlfriend of the time right above it, so I was having a real trip down memory lane,” he says. “All the pissheads drunk from Oddfellows spewing under our bedroom window every Friday and Saturday night.” read the full article here
By Siobhan Synnot Interview: Kevin McKidd, actor and star of Brave
 Brave (Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition: Blu-ray 3D / Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy) (2012) This title has not yet been released. You may pre-order it now and we will deliver it to you when it arrives. Amazon
(snip) Attending the Highland premiere of Brave in Inverness brought back fond memories of his pre-Hollywood days. “I’m delighted the Highland premiere is at Eden Court as it’s here that I performed my first play, Silver Darlings, with the Wildcat Theatre Company and I’ve not been here since then,” said Kevin, who speaks Doric in the film which goes on general release in Scotland on Friday, August 3 and across the UK on August 17. “In Brave, I provide the voice of two characters, clan leader Lord MacGuffin, who is a big bear of a character, and his son, young MacGuffin. “He’s a sort of big guy who is kind of shy, a bit like I was at the same age. “He wouldn’t say boo to a goose and has a very thick Doric accent, so thick nobody actually knows what he’s saying. “I feel pretty pleased I managed to get Doric into a Disney film although I had to call my mum a couple of times for an authenticity check. read the full article here
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