Latest news with #JamesCosmo
Scotsman
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
James Cosmo: Scottish actor on 'incredible' incident at Braveheart premiere - and his love of whisky
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... James Cosmo is known for many great roles, usually in historical epics and fantasy dramas. His standout characters include Jeor Mormont in the HBO series Game of Thrones, Angus MacLeod in Highlander and Campbell in Braveheart, which he has called ' one of the last real epic movies'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But more recently, he has turned his love of blended whisky into his own bottling, Storyman, in collaboration with borders distillery Annandale. The name was chosen given how much of a wonderful raconteur Mr Cosmo is, and no more so when talking about his acting roles, as well as Scottish food and drink. In one of his compelling tales, Mr Cosmo told us, on the most recent episode of Scran , of his 'secret' private jet flight from the south of England to Scotland to attend the Braveheart premiere, which took place at Stirling Castle in 1995. Mr Cosmo was not going to go to the premiere as he had other filming commitments. But at the last minute, the actor decided to book a private jet and fly to the event, returning very early the next morning. This night flight culminated in the actor and his wife transporting a human heart. Annandale distillery Speaking of the night, Mr Cosmo said: 'We hired a plane and flew up. We landed, a car picked us up, we went to the premiere and the after party in Stirling Castle. It was unbelievable. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'They had fire eaters and jugglers and all sorts of medieval stuff. It was the most wonderful party. Eventually at three o'clock in the morning, we needed to get back because that same plane was waiting to take off. 'I said goodbye to everyone and I got in the car and we're driving to the airport and the driver had one of these old brick phones, which rang. He says, 'oh, it's for you'. I thought 'oh Jesus what's happened', and it's the police. They said: 'Do you have a plane leaving for London?' I said, 'yeah, we are about 20 minutes away from the airport'. 'They said 'would you mind taking a human heart on the plane for a transplant?' Because in those days, it was very, very time critical. I said, 'no, it's OK'. They said 'just keep on the motorway'. Then within ten minutes this ambulance pulled in front of us and then two motorcycle cops came down [with the heart], so we just got on the plane with it in a big yellow box. 'Annie and I put it between us and we flew down, landed at the airport, and an ambulance and police [were] there, and it went flying off somewhere. I thought it was fate. We really wanted to go [to the premiere] and somebody got a heart that night.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Storyman whisky from Annandale distillery | Annandale distillery While early morning flights of mercy may be a thing of the past, Mr Cosmo is still very passionate about cooking, whisky and his love of Scotch pies. Luckily, there's a good family bakery near Annandale that keeps Mr Cosmo going with these traditional Scottish savouries. ' I'm an aficionado of Scotch pies,' he said. 'I travel to many places to eat them. In fact, there's one wee place in Annan, near the distillery. It's one of those family bakeries and they do all the old traditional things like potato scones, cakes and Scotch pies. So I go to the distillery, have a few drams, then collect the pies from the bakery and have someone drive me home.' The drams he is referring to will be of his own Blend, Storyman, which launched in 2023. The blend was specially created for the Game of Thrones actor by Keith Law, Annandale's master blender, and owner, Professor David Thomson. The blend features a carefully chosen selection of their award-winning single cask, single malt whiskies. These include various vintages and spirit types from a range of Fresh and Refill Ex-Bourbon, and Ex-Burgundy STR casks. The whisky came about after Mr Cosmo met Prof Thomson at the distillery after filming Outlaw King. Looking for something personal to gift to people at the end of a job, Mr Cosmo asked Annandale if they wouldd bottle something special for him, and the team decided to go one better - create his own whisky. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Annandale distillery Mr Cosmo said he wanted a blend as this was his favourite kind of whisky. He said: 'There's a huge number of aficionados who are single malt people, but I would never pretend to be an expert in whisky. 'If I like a whisky, I like a whisky, that's it. I always preferred a blend to a single malt, really. I was brought up in Clydebank, although I moved to London when I was quite young. But being Scottish, it was the thing everyone drank. 'I remember working in a pub in Clydebank. The ship breakers was just down the road and before we opened at five o'clock, about half past four, we would just start pouring halves [of whisky] and half pints of beer - dozens and dozens of them - because nobody ever asked for anything else.' Speaking of creating the whisky with Mr Law, who Cosmo called 'astonishing', he said: 'Keith is one of these people, he's got just such a knowledge of whisky. It's astonishing, he has a wonderful nose. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'There was one day when there were six samples of whisky , then I had to decide which one was going to be the one to bottle. Then we started the first run of it and it has been a fantastic experience just seeing that first bottle there.' Mr Law said: 'The blending process took a great deal of time to get right. It was a process that involved speaking with James, having in-depth conversations to identify the types of whisky James likes to enjoy. What we created is a smooth and complex whisky, with notes of vanilla, honey, citrus and smoke. What we wanted to do is capture the essence of James's whisky memories and make it tangible and that's what we have done with Storyman.'
The Independent
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Duke of Edinburgh says awards mark ‘pride and success' in youth achievements
The Duke of Edinburgh has congratulated young people as they celebrated their gold awards in the gardens of The Palace of Holyroodhouse. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award (DofE) was founded by the late Prince Philip in 1956 and to achieve a gold award young people must complete physical, skills, volunteering and expedition sections as well as a residential. On Friday, the Palace of Holyroodhouse's gardens were transformed into a festival-style party, with games, food stalls, and various activities as around 600 gold award winners celebrated their achievements. Attendees heard from famous Scots including Olympic runner Eilish McColgan, singer Nathan Evans, and actor James Cosmo. The Duke of Edinburgh, who received his own award from his father, Prince Philip, in 1986, gave a speech and told attendees: 'It's really good to see you all here today, and particularly, congratulations to each and every one of you who have managed to achieve your gold DofE. 'This is for you, this is our recognition and celebration of your achievements. I hope that today is an excellent day for you and a real celebration for that.' Referring back to his youth when he began working towards his own award, he joked: 'I hope the experience of doing your award was a good one, that it was enjoyable. I'm guessing there were probably times when you were wondering why you were doing it, and if it was anything like mine that was probably about halfway through the expedition!' He added: 'But it's a great feeling when you get to the end and it's that feeling of pride and success in your achievement that we want to celebrate today and we want to capture.' Olympian and British and European record holder, Eilish McColgan, delivered a speech alongside Nerea Winchester, 18, from Glasgow, who celebrated her own gold award achievement. Ms McColgan said: 'There are many similarities between the DofE and my athletics club. Not just in the obvious areas like hard work and discipline, but that sense of community. Being surrounded by likeminded individuals, all striving to make themselves better. 'In 2011, I ran in my first ever live televised race. Dreaming of qualifying for the world championships. But with 600m to go. I heard a pop. I knew instantly I'd broken my foot. But me being me, and a typical stubborn Scot, I wasn't going to let a broken foot stop me. I kept running. 'Sadly, it wasn't the fairytale ending. Finishing the race came at a cost. A few days later the surgeon told me I'd never run professionally again but suggested I could 'hobby jog'. It was one of the toughest moments of my life, but like many of you on your DofE journeys, I'd learned the value of resilience, of showing up, and of not giving up when things get hard. 'I think if I didn't have my friends from the running club to distract me, my recovery would have looked very different. Instead, I really leant on my support network. Even when I couldn't run, I'd still go down to the track just to keep my motivation high. I truly believe that made a huge difference.' Nerea, also a DofE youth ambassador, volunteered for Oxfam for three years as part of the work towards earning her award. She said: 'Through my DofE sections, I found groups and niches of people who not only accepted my chatty, loud self, but embraced it fully. Without meeting these people through the DofE, I can't guarantee I would feel confident enough to unapologetically be myself. 'DofE gave me a purpose in life and let me express my creativity like never before. I never felt I was good at art or capable of creating it. 'However, when I picked up knitting for my DofE Skills section, I found an amazing creative outlet. It was challenging, but I learned to trust the process and, in doing so, built my resilience as well as rediscovering my creativity.' Speaking before he gave a speech to those attending, actor James Cosmo told the PA News Agency: 'If you are a parent listening out there, or a young person, you should really think about doing the DofE award. 'No matter what your circumstance is, there's something there to suit you and your future career, for your personal development, nothing beats it, it's fantastic.' He added: 'These people go through the bronze, silver and then gold and so a lot of the time they're doing voluntary work, nobody's paying much attention to them, they're just getting on with it and showing the dedication and stick ability. 'So it's nice at the end of it all, to recognise the effort they've made when clearly there was nobody there to cheer them on. They did it.'
