Rejected by the National Film School, compact, ginger-haired Scotsman Peter Mullan abandoned his hope of being a film director and opted for the life of a drama teacher instead. After finally outgrowing (at the age of 27) a tendency for self-destructively working himself to exhaustion, which had landed him in the hospital again and again, he made his professional acting debut in the Wildcat Theatre Company's 1988 Christmas pantomime. More stage work followed, as did film roles in "The Big Man" and Ken Loach's "Riff-Raff" (both 1990), and by 1994 he was playing a featured role as a thug in
While at university; wrote and directed first film, "Then There Was an Englishman"
Application to National Film School rejected; decided to become drama teacher
In the 1980s, was active during a miner's strike that crippled Britain and in a movement against the poll tax that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher first introduced in Scotland; wrote "Harmony Row", a play protesting poll tax
