Robert Carlyle: reserve screens for UK productions

Trainspotting actor urges cinema chains to give 'a wee leg up' to the British film industry
Robert Carlyle with his 2009 Bafta Scotland award
Loved up … Robert Carlyle with his Bafta Scotland award for his performance in The Unloved. Photograph: Martin McNeil/

Actor Robert Carlyle has called on cinema chains to "give a leg up" to the British film industry by reserving at least one screen in multiplexes to show UK productions.

Speaking at the Bafta Scotland awards in Glasgow on Sunday, the Trainspotting and Full Monty actor said, "I look at all these multiplex cinemas, 15 and 20 screens. They are basically wall-to-wall American product. You will be lucky if you find any British subject in there at all.

"I don't see why there's anything wrong in giving our industry a wee lift up, a wee leg up, and reserving one of these screens, just one of these screens for a British product.

"We make stuff and we bury it. You don't get to see it and what's the point in that? Reserve something so people will then vote with their feet."

Carlyle, who can currently be seen in SGU: Stargate Universe on Sky1, was in his home town to pick up the Scottish Bafta award for best television actor for his performance in Samantha Morton's The Unloved, beating Doctor Who's David Tennant to the prize.

He added that he was unlikely to shoot a film in Britain in the near future due to problems getting movies made and distributed.

He said: "I'm not going to be hanging about making films in Britain for quite a wee while, to be honest with you.

"The major problem for me is it's getting harder and harder to make these types of films, more and more difficult to get the finance."