Helen McCrory almost turned down her role on Peaky Blinders because of her Scottish roots.
The half Glaswegian actress, who died at the age of 52 last week, said her family background made her wary of acting in "yet another apologetic British drama".
Helen graced our screens for years - most recently as Polly Gray in Peaky Blinders - but also as Narcissa Malfoy in Harry Potter, Cherie Blair in The Queen, Clair Dowar in the James Bond film Skyfall, and Sonia Woodley QC in ITV's Quiz.
The legendary actress also had a wide ranging theatre career, starting as Rosaline in Shakespeare's As You Like It and Lady Macbeth at the Globe - following her graduation from the Drama Centre London, reports Glasgow Live.
But playing Lady Macbeth isn't her only link to Scotland as her dad, diplomat Iain McCrory, was from Glasgow.
He joined the Diplomatic Service aged 23, with one of his jobs being to close the British embassy in Madagascar in 1984, when locals were on the verge of revolution.
The family had an interesting history, living all over the world - from Oslo to Africa via Paris.
And although Helen never lived in Glasgow herself, she has spoken previously about how she thought of her family roots when first asked to play her role as Polly Gray in Peaky Blinders.
Speaking to Idler, Helen said at first she almost turned down the role of Polly Gray, thinking it would be a traditional 'kitchen sink' drama with no bite.
When asked how she got involved with Peaky Blinders, Helen said: "When they first approached me, they said "Would you like to play Aunt Polly in this gangster drama set in Birmingham?” And I was like: “No.”
"I looked at the history of that time and the slums of Birmingham. My own grandparents grew up in the slums of Glasgow and were miners' kids in Cardiff, and I thought I was going to be there with a mangle saying things like: 'Gotta get up early to get a wash on in the backyard.'
"Then [writer] Steve Knight said: 'Do you like Westerns?' When I was at drama school in Chalk Farm I would go down to a stall in Camden Lock that used to sell these 5p Western novels. I used to read them to relax on the weekends and I loved them.
"So he said: 'That’s how we are gonna do it, we are gonna film it as a Western and we want that epic quality. We don’t want this kind of apologetic drama we are so good at doing in Britain – the kitchen sink, those angry young men.'
"It’s really shaped television writing, still now you’ll see it constantly and how it’s influenced the writers of today. But nobody was doing what Steve was doing which was making these people heroes.
"Also, with the idea that it’s man against everything around him, which is of course perfect for how men felt coming back from World War I. Suddenly God was dead and government was dead and people were in a sort of Wild West situation, there was that feeling of isolation."
Her Glaswegian father reportedly taught her that "life was an adventure", and her Grandmother sounded like a feisty woman who would regularly use phrases such as "just because i've got a hole in my a**e doesn't mean i'm a plant pot", according to The Scotsman. It was because of her dad's job that she grew up all over the world.
Her granny and other relations still live in the city.
Helen is survived by her husband, Damien Lewis, and her children, Manon and Gully.
