When it comes to a seeming wave of Scottish actors who are invading America with their roguish charm and sword-swinging biceps, there’s no foot soldier whose landing might be more deserved, or long-in-the-coming than Kevin McKidd’s. Hailing from Elgin, Moray, McKidd got his start in youth theater before making a detour into studying engineering at Edinborough. But like all charismatic actors who seemed destined for a seemingly incongruous career path, it wasn’t long before acting pulled McKidd back in. His early theater work with Robert Carlyle’s Rain Dog Theater Company portended McKidd’s iconic film debut, standing alongside Carlyle as Tommy, one of the endearing drug-addled miscreants of that paean to Scottish bad behavior known as Trainspotting. McKidd’s imposing frame may have gotten him started out as a “gentle giant,” but he was capable enough of emotionally varying it through any number of accents and diverse characters for Hideous Kinky, Topsy-Turvy, Anna Karenina, De-Lovely and Kingdom of Heaven before his Anglo-phile appeal truly became internationally historic with HBO’s Rome. For a series that put believably immoral grit in the sword-and-sandal genre, McKidd’s Roman officer Lucius Vorenus stood for what might be called a voice of reason, honoring duty, country and unknowingly playing witness to history while also playing straight-man to Ray Stevenson’s berserker gladiator Titus Pullo. Rome’s critical success would quickly make McKidd a leading man in American television, first as a reporter unstuck in time for NBC’s one-season cult wonder Journeyman, and presently as the shell-shocked Dr. Owen Hunt on Grey’s Anatomy. All the while, McKidd has continued to do his country proud amidst his new LA environs as the Scot to beat for a lady’s hand in Made of Honor, then as the bad-ass voice of the Scottish super-soldier “Soap” MacTavish in the gloriously violent video game “Modern Warfare 2.”

Now, after more than showing he knows how to handle a broadsword as god-worshiping characters in Rome and The Last Legion, McKidd finally ascends to the all-powerful heavens with Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, essaying the role of Poseidon alongside an acting pantheon that includes Sean Benn’s Zeus, Rosario Dawson’s Chiron and Uma Thurman’s Medusa. It’s McKidd’s charisma that unleashes the thunder like never before (not to mention the ocean) in his relationship to a half-god son whom he seeks to protect from the various demons and deities that want his birthright. But perhaps even cooler for McKidd than going to Mount Olympus is being on the ground floor of what might be the next big Hollywood teen-fantasy franchise, one directed by no less than Harry Potter’s Chris Columbus. For fans of Kevin McKidd’s work, not to mention the acting aspirations of his countrymen, Percy Jackson is a literal godsend.

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