"The Doctor .... has an Ax!"

Kevin McKidd hails from Scotland and is known for his TV roles in the BBC miniseries Anna Karenina and HBO’s Rome, as well as on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. Now the 38 year-old lends his voice talents to MacGuffin in the Disney/Pixar animated fairy tale Brave. McKidd was asked whether he got to work with any of his co-stars, which include Kelly MacDonald and Craig Ferguson.

“No, no, not at all,” Kevin replies, “Everyone was in different areas of the country and parts of the world. So there wasn’t, it was a shame, but I think [producer] Katherine Sarafian so often says that, we never would’ve gotten any work done if we were all in the same room, you know. It was a shame we didn’t get a chance to do sessions together.”

Kevin was asked how it was working alone.

“It’s great because it’s all about you,” McKidd answers.

McKidd was asked if he was involved with Brave.

“Yeah, I was,” Kevin says, “I started I think four years ago and young MacGuffin, I was only cast as young MacGuffin to start with. And then at that time he was going to end up winning Merida’s hand in marriage. But, the shift, I think it was a good shift because of the whole point, the whole message is that this protagonist is, I’m going to find you one in my own sweet time.”

“And so I was guided that poor young MacGuffin didn’t get to win the hand of Merida,” he continues, “But I think for the greater good of the, of the film and the message it was a good thing. Um, and Lord MacGuffin was always kind of as he was based on a grumpy big proud old man, you know.”

Kevin was also asked if he could turn his mom into an animal, which one would he choose to follow in her footsteps.

“Wow,” McKidd answers, with a laugh, “OK. I don’t know what I would turn

"The Doctor .... has an Ax!"

my mom into. But it all feels like every answer’s going to be bad. Um …I mean, turn her into a beautiful hummingbird, so she could fly and be free, there you go, so, yeah. My mom will like that. I’ll give you my real answer later.”

McKidd talks about how much Pixar encouraged the actors to really bring true Scottish authenticity to their roles.

“Well, the film was very well formed by the time I joined it,” he says, “ And the story was pretty much set and all that stuff. So they just, I think they just wanted us to really bring our voices into, and they were very open to us in, you know, they said, this is the line of dialogue.”

“And we’d say, yeah, we could say it that way,” Kevin adds, “But it would be more natural, or a Scottish person would say it more like this. Or it could be funnier if you say it this way. So they were very open to us changing things and giving them different options. You know, as far as, the look of it, I think they had all that stuff sorted.”

Kevin talks about how he managed to create two distinct tones of voice for MacGuffin both when he’s young and when he’s a man.

“I started as young MacGuffin,” he recalls, “And it took us a while because they wanted the Young MacGuffin to be kind of that, you know, nobody could understand a word he says in the film because his accent’s so thick. And we started messing about with this sort of made up words and all that. And that didn’t seem to work, and I suggest this dialect which is from my area in Scotland called the Doric, which my grandfather spoke and it’s a very thick, almost Norwegian-style dialect that’s quite strange. And so I did that and then we started going, well you’re going,

"The Doctor .... has an Ax!"

and then, they offered me Lord MacGuffin, the older character, the dad.

“And we started doing sessions where I do both of at the same time,” McKidd adds, “And I ended up just sort of meeting somewhere in the middle, kind of neither, between a rock and a hard place. So we just had to kind of, we’d do it in the mornings with Lord MacGuffin because my, because I’ve just woken up and my voice was all…And then after lunch we would do Young MacGuffin was the – the thing we landed on. Um, and, you know, I just kind of like basically channeled my dad for Lord MacGuffin, because he’s grumpy and old and I’ve channeled myself, um, as a Young, because I was a very, very painfully shy boy. That’s why I became an actor. So I channeled that painfully shy, young boy that I was.”

A big theme of Brave is taking control of your destiny. McKidd talks about a moment in his life that he took control over.

“I was from a wee town in the northeast of Scotland,” Kevin says, “And there was nobody up there that, I think I was about eight or nine when I suddenly wanted to do this crazy acting thing. And I had no clue how to ever pursue that up there, there was no national theater in Scotland or anything up there, you know, there’s sheep and fields. And so, yeah, I kind of just had to really take matters into my own hands and sort of really doggedly pursue this thing, which I tried to eventually managed to get to be lucky enough to get to do.”

“ So, yeah, I think the message is a very powerful one for young people,” he continues, “It’s like this, this kids who’s on one path, I was going to be a plumber like my dad essentially and I manage, and I kind

"The Doctor .... has an Ax!"

of changed that. Now there’s probably good sides and bad sides to me changing my own fate, you know. So, you know, there, I think that’s another subtle message in the film that, do you really want to change your fate or not, you know, there’s always a payoff, you know.”

Finally, Kevin talks about how his most popular gig at Grey’s Anatomy ended its past season and what viewers should expect when the show returns for the fall.

“Well, it was a really dramatic finale,” McKidd says, “I mean, they’re brilliant writers on that show, you know, they really know how to grab people and keep them especially in their finales and their season premieres. You know, they’re killing people off, having planes crash, I’m amazed that, you know, a plane crashing into a mountain side and only that many people died. But they really do a great job and it was, it was sad to see Chyler Leigh go, very sad. And I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

“They keep their scripts very close to their chest, we start back shooting through, in three weeks, four weeks’ time,” he adds, “So, I could tell you more then, but I know as far as what the premiere’s going to be, it’s going to be pretty intense. I mean, it’s going to, it’s a real game changer, doing something like that to a show, killing people and making people go through a trauma like that, it’s a game changer. So, it’ll be fun to see where we all go there.”