To say that 2012 will be a banner year for Irvine Welsh would be a complete and utter understatement. The Scottish writer, who of course made his name with 1993’s Trainspotting, not only has three separate films on tap (two based on his own books), and is in the scripting phase of a series for HBO; he’s unleashing a prequel to Trainspotting itself. For fans of the man’s work, the news is being welcomed with unmitigated gusto. For the man, it's all in a heady day’s hard work.

Indeed Welsh, who keeps a pad on South Beach and has a home in Chicago, rises with the sun each morning, and if there’s a looming deadline, he’ll burn the proverbial midnight oil as well. These days (and nights), however, it seems there’s always a looming deadline, and after midnight is more the exceptional rule. Nevertheless, a fella’s gotta eat, so when BlackBook extended an invitation to chow down at Joey’s Wynwood, he slapped shut the laptop and had at it. 

Welsh’s current crunch is due mostly to the small screen adaptation of Ian Palmer’s bloody Knuckle, which is being transplanted from the Scottish lowlands to the backwoods of the American South. “The key man in Knuckle is director Jody Hill,” says Welsh. “He was the driving force behind Eastbound and Down starring Danny McBride and John Hawkes. HBO wants it yesterday though, so...”

Like its documentary predecessor, Knuckle will feature two warring factions of fistfighters; unlike its source, which chronicles the inter-family feuds of Irish travelers, the series will pit Irish American family against Irish American family. “Think Fight Club meets the Hatfields and the McCoys,” quips Welsh.

While Welsh is busy handling the preliminary stages of his first American television bout, fellow Scot James McAvoy will be hard at work being Bruce Robertson in the film adaptation of 1998’s Filth. The roaring story begins shooting in Glasgow on January 23 at the hands of director Jon Baird, who also adapted the script. “Jon previously directed Cass, the biopic of Cass Penant, who was leader of hooligan mob the ICF and a friend of mine,” says Welsh. “Cass introduced us and we hit it off. He’s also producing, with Ken Marshal. And Will Clarke and I are the Executive Producers.”

The Filth-faithed writer’s mug will appear onscreen too, playing the part of “a journalist who comes into conflict” with McAvoy’s lead. Before the two met in LA last summer, Welsh said he had some reservations about McAvoy as a junkie cop, but “the moment James sat down, I was sold. He fucking was Bruce.” McAvoy, who told the UK’s Daily Record’s Rick Fulton he’s “taking probably the biggest risk of [his] career” mucking about in Filth, nevertheless found loads of good reason to chance it.

“I can identify with [Welsh’s twistedness], wholeheartedly,” said the actor, in an interview with Collider’s Christine Radish. “His voice and his sense of humor is so unique, and it’s unique in Scotland. It’s not like everybody has that in Scotland. We appreciate it more in Scotland, I think, because of the vernacular, but he’s so unique. He has such an idiosyncratic voice. If they’re asking you to do it, and you can help get it made, and you’re Scottish, you should bloody do it.”

“Beyond that, it’s an incredible role for me,” he adds.

Welsh also recently helped make it possible for legendary character actor Robert Vaughn to take on an incredible role, this in the upcoming The Magnificent Eleven. Spurred by John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven, which itself was sliced from Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, version 2012 takes the Western classic to merry ol’ England and replaces its cowboys with an amateur soccer team, who are recruited to protect an Indian restaurant rather than the traditional village.

Welsh co-wrote the script with his pal John Adams and John‘s father Pete Adams, who came up with the deliciously absurd re-working. Since Vaughn’s the last of the Seven’s survivors (in a cast that included Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson and James Coburn), it seemed only natural the three would extend him an invitation. “At first we thought Vaughn might be interested in a walk-on,” said Welsh. “But after John got him the script, he insisted on playing the villain American Bob. We were very lucky.”

Welsh also was initially slated to direct M11, but “between the deadlines and the new Chicago home, there just wasn’t enough time. I did end up producing though, in addition to working with Pete and John on the script. And Jeremy Wooding directed, and he gave it the Bollywood meets British gangster feel we were looking for all along.”

Before The Magnificent 11 makes its May unveiling (in Cannes, no less), silver screens will come alive with yet another adaptation, this of his Ecstasy. Welsh has been angling to get cinematic on the short story collection almost since it hit the racks back in 1996. “Ten years in development,” he says, with the shrug of someone who hasn’t fallen for a false promise in many a fortnight. “But I never doubted it’d eventually get made -- and get made properly. Rob Heydon finally stepped up and directed; he also adapted the story for screen, and produced the film with Ashley Pover. I’m incredibly keen on what they did with the stories.”

As grand as all of the above cinematic action may be (and is), there’s a damn good chance it’ll in some ways be overshadowed by a sneaky little something called Skagboys. A prequel to the stories that made him infamous, one might say this is where Sick Boy and the rest of his Trainspotting buddies originally got off. “Parts of it were the very first thing I wrote,”explain Welsh, further whetting the world’s already well-whetted appetite. “They were the opening chapters of Trainspotting, so bits of it have been in my drawer 25 years. Feels like taking a bit shit after long period of constipation.”

Scatological candor aside, Skagboys is something near and dear to Welsh’s large, black heart. There was also a bit of pragmatism behind reviving these belovedly decrepit souls. “I went back to them because the material was already there,” adds Welsh. “I just didn't know what to do with it. Then I got thinking about the ‘80's and how it defined so much the Britain we have now and those characters were the best ones I could think of to tell that story.”

Jonathan Cape’s got Skagboys slated to wake the UK in April, while Norton will deliver the US edition come September. And though he hears from fans of both the book and the movie “too many times a day,” Welsh is ready, willing and eager to take the Trainspotting gang back on the road. “I’m surprised people still seem to care about the characters,” says Welsh. “Maybe we can fix that with Skagboys.” And with a wink and a nod the world’s busiest transgressive moves on.

Photo by Jeffrey Delannoy