Irvine Welsh wants to recast ‘Trainspotting’ for a new TV series

Trainspotting writer Irvine Welsh has said he would be open to recasting some of the iconic roles for a potential new TV series.

READ MORE: ‘Trainspotting’: an oral history of the cult film and its sequel

Trainspotting‘s sequel novel, Men In Love, is due to be released this week. According to the Guardian, the book will follow Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie as they try to leave heroin behind and find romance.

In a new interview with Radio Times Magazine, Welsh joked that he would be able to play all the characters well if there was an adaptation. “I could probably play them all quite well,” he said.

He said: “I think I could do a decent hard man for Begbie; the cynical outsider, like Renton; I can probably have a go at the lover, Sick Boy; and I can definitely do the hapless fool, lovable loser thing for Spud. It’s because every character you write is a part of you, even the nutters. All you can really hope for is that the nutters are repressed parts of you.”

Welsh then explained that if he were given the chance, he’d be open to recasting the main characters again. He said he’s “been working with Bobby Carlyle on something like that, but I’d love to just get some brilliant young actors and recast the whole lot again, starting from [prequel] Skagboys”.

Men In Love focuses on a new, transitional period for the characters, who are in their mid-20s – an age category Welsh was quoted in the Guardian as calling  “[an] interesting time in the lives of men”, who begin to become “serious about the quest for romance”.

The novel will open in the late 80s, “at the end of punk and just before acid house, it was that quite fallow time of Thatcherism.”

Welsh added: “I know for myself at the time, I thought, ‘Well, I’ve had my fun with punk and with drugs and all that, and I just want to kind of settle down to a nice life. Then acid house came along and completely turned that on its head.”

To accompany the new Trainspotting sequel novel, Irvine Welsh has announced his debut album, a disco record also titled ‘Men In Love’.

Welsh wrote the lyrics and created the album in collaboration with the Sci-Fi Soul orchestra, who produced and composed the music – which is described as “classic Motown and disco influences with contemporary electronic dance production”.

Speaking about the record, Welsh said: “In uncertain times, dominated by the ascendancy of soul dead oligarchs, their corrosive technology and looting economics, the great positive constant for humanity remains our infinite capacity for love.”

He further said that music “is still the medium by which we bypass their reductive, low frequency world”, adding that “one of the greatest musical forms in delivering that ecstasy has been discotheque music”.

In other Irvine Welsh-related news, the writer called the government attack on Kneecap “a total embarrassment” in an original essay penned last month.

Kneecap previously told NME that Trainspotting was a key influence when making their biopic film. Since then, Welsh has lauded their efforts in “speaking up” about Palestine despite government pressure.

It follows a wave of controversy the band has experienced since their Coachella 2025 appearance in April, which saw the band’s livestream cut after they started an anti-Thatcher chant. The group’s “Free Palestine” message was also confirmed to have been axed from the stream, and the statement reportedly left organisers “blindsided” due to its political nature.

In the essay, published by The Face, Welsh wrote of the horrific scenes coming out of Palestine, where “you see the mass slaughter of children happening in Gaza in real time”.

Touching on the band’s advocacy for the people of Palestine, he said “three young musicians from Derry and West Belfast are bringing this to our attention,” and were “pointing to this line in the sand that we shouldn’t cross.

“And when all the British state can do in response is persecute a band for this – to try to stop them from playing music and from touring internationally with these ridiculous, nonsensical charges – it really is just an embarrassment to us all. A total embarrassment. It makes you feel embarrassed to be breathing the same air as the people who try to do this, who try to silence these voices.”