'It looks much more eventful from the outside than it feels to me'

Irvine Welsh on Choose Irvine: 'I think as a subject you have to give yourself over to that process, you can't interfere. And I was very comfortable with the way both of them turned out'

Ian Jeffries' Choose Irvine Welsh had its world premiere at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film features extensive interviews with Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, while his friends and associates, including everyone from producer Andrew Macdonald to musician Iggy Pop share their thoughts and memories of him. We caught up with Jeffries and Welsh at the festival to talk about the project - which is just one of two documentaries currently in the pipeline about the writer, with I Am Irvine Welsh, directed by Paul Sng (Tish, Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché) also in the works.

How does it feel to be the centre of attention given that writers generally stay more in the background. You’ve also got another documentarian, Paul Sng, following you about at the moment for a film haven’t you?

Irvine Welsh: It's been a strange year. Having two documentaries - they’re a bit like buses. It's been kind of an interesting experience, particularly as I'm not kind of very reflective, I tend to live in the moment. So I've kind of forgotten about most of these things and then you see them all back and you think, ‘Wow’. Because you live inside your own head most of the time and because of that you tend to see your life as quite boring. It looks much more eventful from the outside than it feels to me.

What made you choose Irvine and how easy it was to convince him?

IJ: Trainspotting is one of the movies that I just love. Movies like Pulp Fiction, like Trainspotting, they’re movies that are stuck in my head forever. So I was just really excited that we might get a chance to do it. And then luckily, Irvine said yes to it.

You've managed to collect a lot of people to come and talk about Irvine, how easy was that?

IJ: I think you'd be really surprised. I mean, luckily, everyone loves Irvine. And every person that we rang up, they all said, “Yeah, I’m in”. Obviously we all went to Iggy Pop’s house in Miami, so even Iggy was willing to give his time. So we were really lucky.

When you saw some of the pictures they had of you, Irvine, did you ever think, “Oh, my God, they're not going to use that. Are they?”

IW: I don't kind of get involved. With both documentaries I always said it was important that people made the film they wanted to make. I think as a subject you have to give yourself over to that process, you can't interfere. And I was very comfortable with the way both of them turned out.

Crime is returning for a second series this autumn. Irvine Welsh: 'I think Season Two is vastly superior to Season One, but it'll be interesting to see if other people share that'

It's a perverse thing to say, but I would have been just as comfortable if I'd felt uncomfortable. And I think you just have to accept these things. It doesn't really bother me how I’m perceived because, again, basically, you live inside yourself, you're looking out and I’m not really that self-conscious about people looking in at me.

That’s a generous attitude. When you watched the film was there anything that surprised you?

IW: Obviously, these things are all lodged into your subconscious but when they’re brought back up like that, overtly, it is a bit of a surprise. There's an emotional element to it because you're not used to seeing things in that way, you’re not used to perceiving things in that way. So it is interesting but it's also quite a pleasant surprise, because you don’t really think of your life as being that interesting but it actually is. I was surprised there was so much love for me. I thought Ian must have spiked everybody’s coffee with MDMA.

Ian, how did you go about picking the pieces that you wanted to use in the film, because there is a massive amount to choose from?

Ian Jefferies: The first thing we did when we started the documentary was interview Irvine over two days. So we got the whole scope and the arc of the story. Then we just cut that with where we wanted to go and the friends that joined in at that time. So that’s how we did it, we literally had poor Irvine in a chair for about four hours each for two days each.

The documentary touches on the fact that with Trainspotting there was a screenwriter, John Hodge, involved with that. But more recently, you seem to be doing a lot more bringing your own words to screen with stuff like Crime. How is that for you, as a different way of representing your work.

IW: I think it's interesting. Obviously writing for screen and writing for a novel are really very different. But also writing for TV and cinema are very different as well because usually, when I've been involved in a cinema production, it's independent, rather than a studio. So it's almost like you still form this kind of daft wee gang and you go away and make your movie. Whereas TV tends to be streaming platforms and big broadcasters so you feel like you're part of an industry. It feels a bit like having a proper job.

Crime 2 comes out in September and I think it's better than Crime 1, so I’m really looking forward to see how that gets received. Hopefully we have built on Season One. I think Season Two is vastly superior to Season One, but it'll be interesting to see if other people share that.

Crime is released by ITVX on September 21