Rob Heydon is beginning to realize how big the cult is around his favourite cult writer.
Heydon is in post-production of Ecstasy, the film he shot largely in Sault Ste. Marie last December based on a novella by Irvine Welsh, the Scottish author of Trainspotting, and is taken aback by the worldwide attention his low-budget independent comedy-drama is receiving.

Eleven years in the making, we are now within touching distance of the official launch of the latest big screen adaptation of an Irvine Welsh novel. This time it’s the book Ecstasy which gets the big screen make-over and it’s all down to the hard work of Toronto based director Rob Heydon. In anticipation of the movie’s October 7th release across Canada we had the chance to catch up with Rob to discuss the difficult production schedule, the importance of music in the project and his hopes for how it will be received by the public at large

MOVIE babe Kristin Kreuk confesses she was never a pill popper at parties but hopes to get a hit with Ecstasy, based on writer Irvine Welsh's best-seller.

The Smallville beauty nabbed the female lead in the film, set in Edinburgh, after a director spotted her in a TV remake of chariot race epic Ben Hur.

Kristin, 28, admits sneaking out to all-night raves as a teen but says she managed to dance for hours without taking any illegal substances.

After an 11-year odyssey, director Rob Heydon completes his latest film Ecstasy, based on author Irvine Welsh’s sequel to Trainspotting. 

Award-winning director and producer Rob Heydon has wrapped filming his latest project Ecstasy, a culmination of an 11-year journey. Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, (the esteemed author of Trainspotting), Ecstasy combines Welsh’s provocative characters and superb story telling with shocking thrills and dark comedy, taking us on a journey into a crafty, drug fuelled contemporary satire on modern culture.

Alison Gzowski
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jan. 05, 2011 4:30PM EST

Campaigning against drugs in Sault Ste. Marie is not the first thing you might associate with Irvine Welsh, the Scottish writer best known for his cult story of Edinburgh heroin addicts Trainspotting.

So why his recent visit to the Soo?

What are we going to see: a Personal Visual Conception and the Audience Experience

We will cinematically transport the audience into the global electronic music scene, capturing the energy and magic with a laser light show, steadicam techniques, BodyCam (Pi, Requim for a Dream) sweeping cranes shots, car stunts and chases, spectacular helicopter shots. While the themes and storytelling will allude to The French Connection, Drugstore Cowboy, Quadrophenia and Alan Parker’s Classic Pink Floyd - The Wall.

Every weekend millions of youth around the world head out into ‘club land’ in hopes of achieving any number of objectives: finding love, adding both meaning to their lives and joy to their pessimistic hearts, or simply just to get crazy and express their inner selves through dance. This global collective of disenchanted youth catapult themselves towards those pure human experiences of love and compassion through the ritualistic bonding of dance and MDMA (ecstasy).

Quick Bio
It's been 18 years since Scottish writer Irvine Welsh entranced and shocked the literary world with his 1993 novel, Trainspotting, an ass-kicking look at the drug-addled world of a group of heroin-addicted boyhood friends. Danny Boyle’s feature adaptation of the novel, budgeted at $3 million, became a monster hit, raking in $72 million worldwide three years later. The sequel to
Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy, tells the story of what happened next. Director Rob Heydon shot the film in Toronto and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, which stand in for Scottish locales; the movie stars Kristin Kreuk, Billy Boyd, Adam Sinclair, and Dean McDermott.

Andrew Davies-Cole discovers the reason an Irvine Welsh story is being filmed mainly in Canada

Irvine Welsh now calls Chicago home, but his Leith roots are still clear in the tone of voice emerging from the clink of cutlery and professional chatter of a Toronto eaterie.
He’s having lunch with Rob Heydon, the Canadian writer, director and producer of the latest of his books to receive the celluloid treatment: Ecstasy.

Star sexes up Welsh drug-com

Trainingspotting author Irvine Welsh has revealed his latest drugs flick is a romcom for the rave generation.
The controversial Scot is in Canada working on the movie Ecstasy, based on his book of the same name. And putting some whizz into the project is sexy Smallville star Kristin Kreuk, 27, in a tale of chemical romance.

By Jeffery Cougler

The Sault Star Billy Boyd becomes electric when told a few Sault Ste. Marie watering holes often invite musicians on stage to jam.“Aha, maybe ... Maybe I’ll do that tonight after dinner. I’ll try to find a bar,” laughed the Scottish actor, who, when not appearing on the theatre stage or big screen (film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World), fronts the band Beecake. Maybe not, though.

It's been 18 years since Scottish writer Irvine Welsh entranced and shocked the literary world with his 1993 novel, Trainspotting, an ass-kicking look at the drug-addled world of a group of heroin-addicted boyhood friends. Danny Boyle’s feature adaptation of the novel, budgeted at $3 million, became a monster hit, raking in $72 million worldwide three years later. The sequel to Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy, tells the story of what happened next. Director Rob Heydon shot the film in Toronto and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, which stand in for Scottish locales; the movie stars Kristin Kreuk, Billy Boyd, Adam Sinclair, and Dean McDermott.

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail - By Alison Gzowski

Campaigning against drugs in Sault Ste. Marie is not the first thing you might associate with Irvine Welsh, the Scottish writer best known for his cult story of Edinburgh heroin addicts Trainspotting.

So why his recent visit to the Soo?

Officially, the trip was for a cameo as an anti-drug Scots businessman in Ecstasy, an independent film adapted from one of his novellas. But his enthusiasm for the project, from the actors to the script, suggests something more was at stake. Something, say, a decade longer than a cameo.