MacDonald's Highland life

I would have loved to have come from an eccentric, sprawling family like the Pettigrews of My Life So Far. They lived on a wild Scottish estate a couple of lochs up from Lomond and their world was full of mysteries and intrigues. I come from Glasgow and only have one sibling.

Fraser, the young son played by Robert Norman, narrates the story about his hare-brained father, played by Colin Firth, and the business he founded in the Twenties to market a healing moss called sphagnum that was apparently used in the First World War. His brother, played by Malcolm McDowell, tries to squash the project and storms off with his beautiful French fianc?e Heloise, played by Ir?ne Jacob, who changes the family's fate forever. I play the 16-year-old daughter Elspeth, a very straightforward teenager who's set her sights on this mysterious pilot who drops from the sky on to their lawn. She's definitely rather different from Diane, the girl I played in Trainspotting.

I'd not heard of the healing moss in the Highlands - but then I don't come from a very Scottish "folklore" family. However, it is a true story based on the autobiography of television executive Sir Denis Forman. Directed by Hugh Hudson and produced by David Puttnam, it was a really special job as it's the team's first film together since Chariots Of Fire in 1981 and the last film David Puttnam's producing.

I got the job when I was working on stage at the Old Vic in Hurlyburly and Hugh Hudson saw me. It all happened very quickly. I actually missed the last-night performance of the play as I was on the train to Scotland feeling as though I'd been beamed up to another world.