Category: Biography

SOURCE: SFX
AUTHOR: Will Salmon
DATE: January 2013, see Note below
ORIGINAL: Print-only, no online original.
ARCHIVE: Nothing on Internet Archive since no online original.
NOTE: I had seen this around as a screenshot or a scan in various places on Pinterest. As of July ’23, I no longer remember where I finally found the entire article. It might have been a very clear screenshot, or perhaps I found the magazine this hails from. Whatever the case, there seems to be no online version of the article. Except possibly here and in a couple other places where fans put it up so it would be readable.

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He ain’t nuthin’ but the Hound. Will Salmon meets Rory McCann to talk Thrones, werewolves and being “Yarp”…

Rory McCann sounds a bit gruff today. You might not be surprised to hear that about Sandor Clegane aka the Hound — one of the toughest men in Westeros — but there is a practical reason.

“There was a fight scene that I was involved in — a sword fight. We were training with the stuntmen for over three weeks to do this thing. I was training really hard. There’s a lot of screaming and shouting.” That explains the two days of ADR (additional dialogue recording) he’s just completed. “It’s been the longest session I’ve ever done. Normally you’re done in half a day with my character, but this time… I think it’s a reflection of the fact that I’ve got a bigger part this year, I dunno.”

So, more to do for the Hound, a big impressive sword fight… It sounds like circumstances have drastically changed for the man who we last saw leaving King’s Landing under a cloud. “It’s expanding, and I’m coming into my own, character-wise,” he says. “I’ve moved away from this big staffed castle, with hundreds of people, and it’s turning into almost a road trip — with a few skirmishes along the way!” I’m now imagining Dude, Where’s My Car? with decapitations.

“It’s great fun. I reveal my character a little bit more now. I mean there’s even a chance of humour for the Hound this year. You wouldn’t believe it, but it’s true! I only saw that in playbacks last week. There were some people laughing, but it was okay to laugh. It’s all good.”

Rory McCann had an unconventional introduction to acting. The 6ft 6in Scotsman left school and joined the Forestry Commission. After working as a tree surgeon, he moved into rope access jobs, one of which was painting the Forth Rail Bridge [sic: Forth Bridge], west of Edinburgh. A documentary was made on the men who abseil off the bridge every day, and Rory was there, singing away. Someone spotted him, and offered him an ad for Scott’s Porage Oats. That, in turn, led to a number of small roles (you can spot him in the second episode of the rebooted Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) playing a bouncer, and he was an extra in Willow [sic: you will never see him in Willow, as he was fired from set for laughing during takes]), before his breakthrough performance as wheelchair-bound Kenny McLeod in The Book Group — a role that earned him a Scottish Bafta. Hollywood beckoned, and he has since carved out a bit of a niche for himself as a sword-wielding warrior, appearing in Alexander, Solomon Kane, Clash of the Titans, and, er, Season Of The Witch.

But perhaps his most memorable movie role, at least for SFX readers, was 2007’s Hot Fuzz, where he played Michael “Yarp” Armstrong. “That was a pleasure,” he smiles. “I remember them going, ‘He really is Yarp!’ because I was the custodian of a castle.” Wait… what?

“For a while, I was living in a mock castle in front of a real castle. There was a giant wheel in the lounge. All I had was a chair, a grand piano, a giant German Shepherd and a fully dressed Highland dummy called Rab. He was my only friend. My job was to see who was calling before I opened those two giant oak doors. I was the guy that would open a smaller door within the big door and say, ‘YOU RANG?'”

Er… okay. “So I got the call. I didn’t really understand how big the part was. I thought, ‘Well, you never know, John Mills won an Oscar playing a village idiot.’ I went along and I heard who was in the cast and it was fantastic. And I knew that I wouldn’t be up worrying about my lines, because it would just be ‘yarp’. Simon and Nick were really good fun, and all the old characters… Edward Woodward! And lovely Jim Broadbent. That was an easy job. It was great.” So he’d work with Edgar Wright again? “The last time I saw him was in Iceland and he was dancing with Björk — I’d jump through any hoop for him.”

BLOOD AND WATER

But back to the Hound. Sandor was last seen departing the battle of the Blackwater, having made everyone cheer with his declaration, “Fuck the Kingsguard, fuck the city, fuck the king!” So how is he going to cope away from King’s Landing? “He might hit the bottle hard after leaving,” Rory says. “That [the episode ‘Blackwater’] was incredible. It was a night shoot for a start, and it went on for at least a couple of weeks. Night shoots are hard enough for a few days, but when it lasts for weeks… The weather was atrocious, but the DOPs loved that. Armour and rain really work, apparently. They like the glow and the sparkle and the water, but it led to problems. There were rivers that weren’t there before, and extras lying in pools of mud and blood and water… People were half hypothermic. It was wild.”

That episode was directed by Neil Marshall, best known for his horror movies The Descent and Dog Soldiers. “I’m terrified of werewolves,” Rory says with a chuckle. “I understand some people find it very funny, but I can’t watch it! Neil’s known for very good blood and gore and I think that’s why he was brought in. He was great to work with.”

It’s becoming ever clearer as the series progresses that there’s a streak of nobility in the Hound. “Well, it’s a thought that he’s more of a true knight than any of the others. Even though he’d never want to be a knight — he can’t bear them — he believes in their values. But listen, he’s not all good. He’s done some terrible things. Mostly under orders, though…”

Ah yes, orders from Westeros’s demented boy king. “He doesn’t like Joffrey, but he does what he’s told. But maybe that’s changed now… the Hound at the moment is an outlaw.” But while Sandor may hate Joffrey, Rory is full of praise for the man who plays him, Jack Gleeson. “He’s a very clever, witty, fun guy. He’s a good magician, y’know? He likes slight [sic] of hand and stuff like that. Quite old-fashioned in some ways. The first time I met him he was smoking a pipe! He’s such a great actor, a nice guy and he plays, so convincingly, a little shit!” So convincing, I’ve heard rumours that he occasionally gets grief from angry viewers. “If I knew someone was giving him hassle, I’d rip their bloody head off,” Rory growls. Yikes.

But what about Sansa, the young Stark who Joffrey has specialised in tormenting. It’s fair to say that the Hound has a soft spot for her. But why? Is it paternal? “He’s seeing the similarity to his own upbringing,” Rory says, referring to Sandor’s troubled backstory. “There are memories being brought back of being bullied by his brother, and he hates that. And she’s everything that he isn’t — there’s a purity there.”

Some fans have speculated that he might have a romantic interest in her. “A fondness and stuff… I don’t think there’s any of that, really. He’s protective and frustrated at seeing her living in airy-fairy land.”

GETTING INTO CHARACTER

In reality, Rory is a genial, funny and charming man, very different to his taciturn character. Today he’s wearing a natty red scarf and navy beret that you can’t imagine the Hound ever going near. Getting into character is a long process of physical exercise, hours in the make-up chair and concentration. “It still takes about an hour and three quarters to put on all my stuff, so I’m usually the first in actor-wise.” Not that he’s complaining. “We haven’t got the longest shifts. People like make-up and wardrobe, anyone like that… they’re the first in and the last out. They’re the hard workers really. We’re still pampered.”

In terms of exercise, Rory foregoes a personal trainer, preferring to run five or six miles a day and hit the gym in the evenings. “And I don’t smoke, and don’t drink for at least three months before a job. I’ll phone up my friends and tell them not to speak to me until I’ve finished, because they drink too much! I’m quite reclusive at the best of times but when I’m working, you never see me. I feel like a soldier training, or something — it’s all about the job. I had to bulk up this year because I knew it would be particularly physical. That fight was the hardest thing I’ve done so far. We did it in intense heat and I’m carrying so much armour with this costume. But it paid off.”

Ah yes, back to the fight. It must be tough wearing that much clobber. “Yeah, yeah… I can’t pick it up. The wardrobe department needs a wheelbarrow to carry my costume around! There’s so many layers and ropes and stuff, and a big cloak. It’s all good fun!”

And being on the road brings its own set of problems for the Hound. “The main thing is that I’ve got very rusty armour, so everybody can hear me coming! I think there was some page oiling and cleaning his armour every night, before. There ain’t no page in the countryside. You can hear him before you see him now: squeak, squeak, squeak! I think that’s why I’ve been in the sound studio for so long.”

Can he tell us who he meets along the way? “That’s a total spoiler. I’d have my bollocks cut off if I told you,” he grins, and says no more.

SOURCE: The Scotsman
AUTHOR: Rory? Unsure of provenance of this piece (did Rory write it? Dictate it? If the latter, to whom?)
DATE: 12 January 2009
ORIGINAL: Click here
ARCHIVE: Click here

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Actor Rory McCann is 39. He is based in Scotland, but spends most of his time travelling for work.

WHAT do I know about women? I don’t know anything. Basically you’re asking the wrong person. I remember mentioning this interview to my male mates, and they laughed their heads off. Their joke is that I couldn’t find a bird in a pet shop. It’s true. I do live in a remote area, and I don’t socialise much, so that maybe that doesn’t help.

I’m single because I move about so much that I can’t really get attached. I spent the new year in Ullapool and all I was getting was “Oh my God, you’re the Porage Oats man!” That doesn’t really help the situation. I did better in Iceland. I lived there for a year and I’m not known there, so it was just regular. The women there are fantastic. They wear the trousers. They’re the ones that point and go “Hey you. Over here!” and the men are the meek, quiet ones who are sitting there going “Who, me?” I liked that approach.

I’d like someone quiet and not too much trouble. Someone very cuddly. Chatty, but not outspoken; I don’t like loud women at all. In the business I meet some beautiful women, but to be honest, 80 per cent of them, are raving lunatics, and are to be avoided. It’s just insecurity, actors are generally quite insecure. I wouldn’t date, or I’ve never had a fling with an actress, and I’d quite like to keep it that way. But we’ll see. I have the will of a flip-flop.

If I had a long-term partner, I don’t think I’d be an actor. It’d be too much of a strain; you have to work too hard to balance that life with a family and a mortgage and all that stuff, it would be too much. I don’t think it would be fair.

I’ve got to say my mother is the most important woman in my life and not just because she is a Scotsman reader. She’s my one true believer, my No 1 fan. I’ve always been close to her. She’s been very encouraging through the ups and downs of being an actor. It’s not easy because there’s long periods of no work and she’s always been the one trying to keep me positive. I’ve managed to bring her to a few premieres – she met Angelina Jolie and that made her day.

My sister is also a very important person in my life. She’s three years younger than me and works in the business as well, she does costumes. She did a job on Alexander with me, which was great. It’s good to have a confidante. On set, we speak a secret language from childhood, so none of the other actors or directors know what we’re talking about. It’s very useful when you don’t want others to know what you’re saying.

I’m a man’s man. I go out climbing and live outdoors. I can’t get on girls’ wavelengths at all. I think we are completely different. I don’t know, maybe that’s the way it should be. If we could all get along occasionally though, that would be nice.

SOURCE: The Sunday Mail (Glasgow, Scotland)
AUTHOR: John Millar
DATE: 29 October 2006
ORIGINAL: Probably no longer available
ARCHIVE: Click here (Free Library) or click here (Internet Archive)

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Byline: By JOHN MILLAR

SCOTS Porage Oats hunk Rory McCann is quitting Scotland for Iceland.

The actor is moving there from Glencoe after falling in love with it during filming of medieval epic Beowulf And Grendel.

He said: “I came out to Iceland to make this movie and when we finished I decided to stay.

“Of course I miss Scotland and my friends there but I love Iceland.

“It is Scotland on steroids – bigger mountains and bigger weather. The people are gems. They never complain about the weather.”

Rory, 37, is learning Icelandic and claims living there will improve his health.

He said: “I have never been fitter.”

Rory is best known as the kilted hunk in the Scott’s Porage Oats ads.

The actor – who won a Scottish Bafta in 2002 for his role of wheelchair-bound Kenny in comedy-drama The Book Group – will next be seen in comedy Sixty Six.

The movie – out on Friday – follows young Jewish boy Bernie, played by 13-year-old Gregg Sulkin, who is preparing for his bar mitzvah.

But his big day clashes with the 1966 World Cup Final and if England triumph people won’t care about his long-awaited party.

Rory – who also appeared in Oliver Stone’s epic Alexander – plays a policeman who stops Bernie and his dad as they speed to Wembley to catch the match.

They hope the cop will be sympathetic – but soon find the Scots traffic enforcer is far from happy at all the World Cup hysteria.

Rory said: “It’s a good joke and when I read the script I knew that scene would get a laugh.”

At the end of filming, Rory was given a memento – a replica red English football shirt that had the name of the movie on the back.

But he soon discovered the joke was not appreciated north of the border.

He said: “I wore it when I was back in Glasgow and some guys were not amused. They said I should burn it.

“I think if I wore it again I might get lynched.”

SOURCE: The Times
AUTHOR: Mike Wilson
DATE: 03 August 2003
ORIGINAL: Click here
ARCHIVE: Cannot archive due to paywall.
NOTE: If this looks familiar, it’s because you’ve seen the story of Rory as a castle doorman in “Dog Soldier“. This story goes into much more detail and gives us context for several other things going on in his life at the time. Finding this for me was like being the little kid at Christmas.

And hey, big man. You ever want someone to come hang out with you in a castle gatehouse again, winter or summer, hit me up. It’s cold? Fuck it, let’s cuddle.

I know. I know. Shaddup.I KNOW, I KNOW, MARRIED MAN. Never mind. Grump.

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Actor Rory McCann loved life in an old stone gatehouse, he tells Mike Wilson

The gatehouse looks like a mini-castle — it has 30ft oak doors. Downstairs, there was a grand piano, plus big wheels, the size of a car wheel, that were used to open the 30ft doors. Upstairs, 50 steps up a turret, was my bedroom.

Rowallan Castle is owned by a friend who played with me in a band. And as well as doing tree surgery, I was also required to walk the land, with my gun and dog, to keep an eye on things. Basically, in exchange for being able to live in the gatehouse, I was an unpaid night watchman, doing the odd job around the place and cutting down the odd tree. I felt very lucky. This was only five years ago.

I had great times at Rowallan. It was hard, though, during the winter. The only way to heat the house was with log fires but it would take four hours before the house would feel warm, because the stone (walls) just sucked the heat from the fires. To get a bath, I’d just go down to Kilmarnock swimming pool.

In summer, though, it was just glorious. And I had the whole place to myself. I am very good with my own company. Most of my girlfriends, however, didn’t like staying there when it was dark and cold. Some thought it was like camping, because it was so basic.

Furniture-wise, there were only four pieces: a grand piano, a bed, a sofa and a chair. It’s just as well I can play the piano. There was no cooker, for instance. But I got by for food: lots of fish suppers, I suppose. I’d sometimes cook on the fire.

There was also a dummy — Rab — in full Highland dress, which would scare me every time I opened the door to the room it was in.

Eventually, I had to start earning something for a living, so I left Rowallan for a high-rise in Glasgow and a job painting the Forth bridge. I did that for a year.

It wasn’t the best time of my life, partly because I had to get rid of my dog, a big German shepherd.

But during that time came a call from an agent, asking me to appear in a television ad for Scott’s porridge oats. It meant I was able to dump the ropes and dump the chainsaw and I’ve never looked back.

I now live in the west end of Glasgow. But I dream of one day having my own castle, a hideyhole.

You might know the porridge ad: I’m wearing a kilt, walking down the street, and the wind blows up. It looked very Marilyn Monroe, standing over the air vent.

You have got to remember, I was knocking on agents’ doors all during this period. But all I’d get were one-liners. One of the reasons I moved to Glasgow from Rowallan, I suppose, was to be closer to the acting scene.

And then Annie Griffin, who wrote and directed The Book Group asked me to read a script. I was actually working on a tree when she arrived in person.

Of course, I was expecting it to be another one-line wonder. She handed me the script. I said, “Which line do I say?” And she replied, “No, read the whole script.”

And lo and behold, I’m reading the character of Kenny and his stories are feeling like my stories. And then, a while after that, last year, I am picking up a Scottish Bafta for Best Television Performance.

Best known for playing Kenny in Channel 4’s The Book Group, Rory McCann has appeared in Peter the Great, broadcast on the BBC, and has a part in a film, Young Adam, to be screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival

SOURCE: The Herald
AUTHOR: Lorna MacLaren
DATE: 28 January 2003
ORIGINAL: Click here
ARCHIVE: Click here

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From dubious tree surgeon and Forth bridge painter to giant of porridge commercials, Book Group star Rory McCann tells Lorna MacLaren of his next move

KNOWN as the porridge-oats hunk to breathless fans, Rory McCann’s image as a solid oak of manhood was shaken to the roots in a public toilet. As his towering 6ft 6in figure leaned over a urinal, he was accosted.

“At the crucial moment this bloke grabbed me by the arm and said ‘You’re that porridge guy’. He looked me up and down and said ‘My, you are big’. There is no way to get a flow going after that.”

McCann, advertising sensation and now star of Channel 4 cult comedy The Book Group, tells his toilet tale while rocking precariously on a high stool in a Glasgow coffee shop. He’s huge for the flimsy seat and curses as he hunches forward to keep his balance on its spindly legs.

The idea that he is famous seems to surprise him. “Why do people want to interview me anyway?” Yet he is no longer best known for being the muscle man in the Scot’s Porage Oats ads who lets cheeky girls peek up his kilt. The 33-year-old former lumberjack, tree surgeon (he still loves climbing into leafy branches where he can disappear), and one-time painter of the Forth Bridge, is today a respected actor following the cult hit of his current project, The Book Group. A Channel 4 success story, the intelligent comedy drama, now in its second series, is set in Glasgow and revolves around a set of dysfunctional people drawn together through their love of writing and a desire for friendship.

It’s quirky and the humour is bitter-sweet. Inevitably it’s been compared to a Scots version of the US comedy, Friends. McCann plays Kenny in a wheelchair, a part he researched by meeting people in the spinal injuries unit at the Southern General hospital in Glasgow, and socialising with wheelchair users. “Those guys were fantastic. They put up with me asking them the most ridiculous questions,” he smiles broadly.

“How do you climb up the stair in a close when you’re in a wheelchair? I had to find out and then do it. I even asked one guy how he made love to his girlfriend who also uses a chair. The people I spoke to were brutally honest and would always say if I did something or used my arms in a way a wheelchair user would never do. They were mainly very positive about the role. It was a good challenge for me as an actor too, taking me away from the obvious ‘big guy’ parts people would expect to see.”

He’s got a cold, and had growled the fact in quite a disturbing manner when I first introduced myself, but now there is a major thawing as he succumbs to a hasty bribe of coffee and several hundred bagels with cream cheese.

A joke about his healthy appetite is greeted with indignance. “Did you see that newspaper story about me needing a body-double in the latest porridge ad?” he asks between chews. He is referring to a fitness guru being used as a stand-in for the McCann six-pack in his third, porridge adventure which shows him emerging from a skinny dip in a chilly loch – kilt swinging from a nearby branch.

“That really pissed me off, I mean, the guy quoted said I had a wee willie, which is bad enough, and not true [his voice is full of comic menace]. But making out I was fat? I was in the process of losing weight after a film project.”

McCann’s eyes flicker as passers-by stop outside our window and point nervously through the glass at him, as though they were observing a dangerous zoo animal, but his conversation doesn’t falter for a second. He seems to be used to the attention. “The adverts made me a familiar face, but I’d refused to do them at first.”

I ask him if he’s subsequently become a hit with women, only to find out (apologies to his fans) that he has been for six years living quite happily with his girlfriend. She’s a doctor, a very sensible girl, who takes it all in her stride, he assures me.

Even the steamy scenes in The Book Group?

He grins: “I do have loads of girlfriends in this series. Kenny is a popular bloke. It’s rubbish what actors say about being embarrassed by the crew staring at you when you’re half naked and rolling around with a woman – it’s actually great.”

He grins wickedly before admitting that he was actually deeply afraid during the whole Book Group creation – especially the first series. At the time he was an unknown quantity, had never done more than a couple of “one-line wonders”, as he describes his former experience.

“There were times at the start of it all when I would be standing, terrified in front of the cameras and people I considered ‘real’ actors. I had no idea what was happening, what the guy with the clipboard did, or if people in the studio were looking at me because it was their job to look at me or because they thought I was making a mess of things. Luckily everyone was very supportive and Annie Griffin steered me through it. I was in tears more than once though.”

Griffin, an American director and writer is the creative talent behind The Book Group. There have been questions asked on how she managed to capture the Scots psyche when arguably a more home-grown offering such as the BBC soap River City missed the mark. “I think Annie’s ideas work because she came into Scotland from the outside and has been able to observe us for who we are,” says McCann.

“I’ve known her for a long time. She took a real chance on me by giving me the Book Group role. The first time she told me her idea for Kenny, who is based on me, I’m ashamed to say I told her he wasn’t a good idea. She was a bit crushed, by all accounts, and I was obviously wrong.”

While “Kenny” lost the use of his legs in a climbing accident, the actor who plays him almost died a few years ago when climbing in Yorkshire with no ropes – falling 80ft. “I remember clinging to rocks with my fingertips and there was nowhere for me to go, only down,” he says. “I knew I was going to fall, and that I’d probably die. I ended up just letting go. It was lucky that I rolled most of the way down and just broke my feet and wrist and bashed my head.”

Life was precarious but fun in his pre-acting days. He recalls: “I was a lumberjack for years, a pub bouncer, I’ve sung in a band, in fact I still sing, and I even trained myself to be a tree surgeon. Now that was dangerous, hanging off of dead trees and sawing away at the branches. I also had a job swinging 250ft from a rope, painting the Forth rail bridge. I tell you though, acting is far more scary.”

After getting into showbusiness late in life, at last, he has gained the confidence he needs to be an actor. “I’m a different person from the wreck of the first Book Group series. I’ve grown into it all.”

He has just finished filming a new project with Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton, and he has a forthcoming part in a television drama starring Kelly McDonald. “My roles aren’t huge but it’s a start,” he says. “I’ve also got a chance of filming in Malta for a few months with my own slave girl and chariot. It’s a lot better than cutting down trees but I’d go back to that before taking parts I’m not happy with. I want to make good choices after Book Group. I’m hopeful that I’ve made a breakthrough now and people are getting to know me.”

Illustrating the point, a well-dressed coffee drinker with a clipboard, looking every bit a television executive, appears by our seats and slaps McCann hard on the back. “We think you’re wonderful. Good job,” he barks, before sweeping away.

The porridge-oat man smiles broadly, then turns to me and frowns. “Who the f*** was that?”

SOURCE: Daily Record
AUTHOR: Rick Fulton
DATE: 28 March 2002
ORIGINAL: No longer available
ARCHIVE: Click here (Free Library); Click here (Internet Archive)

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Byline: RICK FULTON EXCLUSIVE

STRAPPING Scott’s Porage Oats man Rory McCann cheated death after falling an incredible 70 feet in a climbing accident.

And now the fall is the basis of a new pounds 1.3 million Channel 4 comedy series, The Book Group.

The background to Rory’s character Kenny is based on his own horrific accident – but in the television show, he is paralysed and wheelchair-bound.

Luckily for Rory, he recovered from his horrendous injuries, which included a fractured skull.

Rory, 33, explained: “I was holding on to an overhung cliff face on a Yorkshire cliff. I was on my own and I didn’t have any ropes. I had 15 feet to go, but I didn’t have any strength left and couldn’t do the last move.

“For 10 minutes I held on, then went ‘f*** it’ and aimed for a patch of green. I just saw green, green, green and then ‘bang’. I thought I was going to die.” A friend saw Rory fall but couldn’t drive, so with two broken ankles, broken wrist, broken arm and fractured skull, Rory drove to hospital, his mate changing the gears.

He said: “I couldn’t believe I drove away from that with four stookies and a head bandage. I lost a life there.”

Later, the 6ft 6ins Glaswegian gentle giant told writer and director Annie Griffin about his fall and his life-long love of climbing. Now she’s used it for The Book Group about an American woman who comes to Scotland and forms a book group to make friends.

But the people she attracts, such as Kenny, aren’t exactly what she expects and each week we follow their stories.

Being in a wheelchair is a completely different image to the one that has made Rory a international star as the kilted hunk in a white vest who promotes Scotland’s most famous breakfast.

But Rory doesn’t want to be just the face of Porage Oats – he is desperate to become a full-time actor. This is a perfect opportunity, as the series goes out at 9.30pm on a Friday night – Channel 4’s comedy prime time.

And he’s also won a part as Peter Mullen’s brother-in-law in Young Adam, which stars Ewan McGregor and is currently being filmed in Scotland.

RORY is on the cusp of becoming a successful actor – something he’s dreamed of for years. As well as Young Adam, he will soon be seen in London’s Burning as a jealous boyfriend.

For research for The Book Group, Rory met wheelchair users with spinal injuries to see how they got about. He also went round Glasgow for a day in a wheelchair, which was an eye-opener.

He said: “Everyone was extra friendly and slightly patronising. I think many able-bodied folk find it hard to know what to say or how to act with disabled people.

“It did make me think about what life could have been like after my fall, but I’m still amazed I lived, let alone walked away without a permanent injury.”

But then everything about Rory McCann is amazing. He’s had the sort of life many of us only dream of.

Three years ago when he was offered the chance to be the Scott’s Porage Oats man, he turned it down several times because he wanted to climb the Matterhorn. The producers had auditioned 400 people – but the first time Rory was asked, he was too busy painting the Forth Bridge.

At school, Rory was bullied for being small and skinny. He became a lumberjack and broadened out and that started his love of rock climbing.

He had his first taste of acting at an early age. At 17, he was climbing in Wales and was going past a slate quarry when he stumbled on filming for the fantasy epic Willow.

Director Ron Howard, who this week won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, was looking for extra cast and Rory blagged his way in. He recalled: “They didn’t want me at first. They were looking for drunks who were big, so I stood up and said ‘I’m 6ft 6ins and I’m from Glasgow’.

“My scene was having to look terrified, but every time I looked up, my friends would make me laugh. Ron would say: ‘Hey, Scottie, don’t laugh’. But I couldn’t help it and was chucked off set.”

Having grown a beard for his new role, Rory is happy to keep it and ditch the kilt so he doesn’t get recognised as much.

Rory, who lives with Hazel, his doctor girlfriend of four years, said: “People come up and poke me and say ‘there’s the Porage man’. But it was a great privilege to do the adverts.”

He was keen to do the new television drama Rockface, feeling he was Scotland’s only real climber and actor, but was told they already had Clive Russell – another strapping Scot.

But that hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm for acting.

He confessed: “I would prefer to cut down some trees for pounds 100 than do a ropy character, but I want to become a full-time actor – I’m still cutting down trees and every time, I hope it’s my last job.

“My hands are knackered – I’ve got white finger from the vibrations of the chainsaws like miners who use heavy equipment down the pits.

“I’m 17 and a half stones going up trees that are about to fall down. I’ve been lucky once and I don’t want to risk it all again.”