DOCTORING THE SCRIPT

It’s a sure bet that come Oscar night “The English Patient” will be a topic on everyone’s lips. But they’ll be talking about the Scottish Doctor too.

John Hodge, who is nominated in the category of best adapted screenplay for his film version of Irvine Welsh’s novel “Trainspotting,” has a second profession. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh for five years, took time off to develop screenwriting projects including his first film, “Shallow Grave,” but has subsequently returned twice to medical practice.

In fact, he has just completed a lengthy stint at a London hospital, which he embarked upon after the British opening of his second film, “Trainspotting,” a smash hit in his native land.

“In Britain, the publicity and media interest in ‘Trainspotting’ were universal,” said Hodge, 32, a winning, quietly spoken man with a diffident manner and a sly, oblique sense of humor. “There was a period when it seemed you couldn’t go outside your door without seeing billboards of (lead actor) Ewan McGregor in the film. It all got [to be] too much for me, and I decided I had to get away from it.”

First he had to finish his third script, a sweet-sour screwball comedy titled “A Life Less Ordinary,” which was recently filmed in Utah with McGregor and Cameron Diaz in the leading roles. But Hodge also applied for and landed a six-month contract job as a senior house officer at St. George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, which he began in August and completed two weeks ago.

“I was working the wards, seeing emergency admissions and taking clinics,” Hodge said. “It was a middle-ranking job. Basically you work for a consultant and see his patients. I really enjoyed the medicine in the past six months. There’s no doubt in my mind--being a doctor is a more interesting job than being a screenwriter.”

What makes him think so?

“You work with other people, you see more interesting things,” said Hodge. “Disease and treatment are genuinely intriguing. Whereas a screenwriter sits alone in a room.”

He reacted with shy amusement when it was pointed out that Los Angeles is teeming with screenwriters who would kill for his track record--three screenplays, three produced films and an Oscar nomination already. Yet he retains another profession he deems more worthwhile.

“It must be something about my middle-class Scottish background, I suppose,” he said finally. “If you don’t go into medicine, law or accountancy, you’re some kind of deviant. The idea is to seek security, I suppose, and I still feel that.”

Hodge knows how to play his conventional upbringing for wry laughs. Since the news of his nomination broke, he has been besieged by people in the media asking him how he feels about it.

“I was surprised,” he said. “But I was brought up to a lifetime of understatement and restraint. That’s the normal means of communication where I come from. People ask how I feel--that’s an incredibly intrusive question. I’ve spent 32 years not saying how I feel. Why would I want to start now?”

He paused to let this tirade sink in: “But it’s a great honor, isn’t it?”

Hodge admitted he felt some trepidation in adapting Welsh’s novel. “Trainspotting” is a harsh, uncompromising portrayal of a group of young heroin addicts in Edinburgh, and though Hodge felt he was on familiar ground--he knew of the drug’s medical effects from his hospital training--the book was already on its way to becoming a bestseller with fiercely protective devotees by the time the film opened in Britain.

“My main worry was about Irvine,” said Hodge. “I knew the quality of his writing, and thought if he didn’t like the film he would be an articulate, powerful critic.”

In fact, Welsh liked Hodge’s adaptation (he described it as a “remix”) and even took a cameo role in the film as a gesture of his acceptance. As an adapter, Hodge was far from slavish; his screenplay does not remotely echo the structure of Welsh’s novel.

“It was too complex to adapt directly,” Hodge said. “But then I think adapters make the mistake of being far too faithful to the text, especially with classics. You’ll never match a great work of literature on film, but you can write a film which is great in itself. Look at Shakespeare--he’d take a story and make his own play based on it only very loosely.”

He has written all his three films with the same partners--producer Andrew Macdonald and director Danny Boyle. Hodge and Macdonald first met in 1991 through Hodge’s sister, who was sound editor on a short film Macdonald had produced.

At this point “Shallow Grave” consisted of three handwritten pages of notes. But he and Macdonald developed the story together and a year later attended a Scottish film seminar where they met David Aukin, head of drama at Britain’s Channel 4 television. Aukin liked the script and agreed the channel would provide majority funding for the film. Boyle, with a background of theater and TV drama, was Macdonald’s first choice to direct.

“It’s been a very fortunate partnership,” Hodge mused. “Had I not met Andrew, ‘Shallow Grave’ would certainly never have been made. I see myself continuing to work with Andrew and Danny. We’re not tied contractually and we have different interests as well as shared ones. But we’ll always share something--we started in the same place with ‘Shallow Grave,’ our first feature. So there’s a strong bond there.”

Indeed, he has started his fourth script for the alliance--”Alien Love Triangle,” which Hodge calls “a science-fiction film in three parts.” But he is also adapting another novel, James Hawes’ “White Merc With Fins,” for Pat Harkins, a Glasgow-based director who has made short films and was coincidentally a props man on “Shallow Grave.”

The last week in March will be an eventful one for the Scottish Doctor: On Monday evening, he will be at the Oscar ceremonies, waiting to hear if he is summoned to the dais to receive a statuette; on Saturday, he will get married (his fiancee is a pharmacist at another London hospital).

In the short term, at least, he has no plans to return to medicine, though he still frets about screenwriting as a long-term career. (Macdonald observes almost fearfully that anyone with Hodge’s success rate could be put on retainer by a major studio and receive a very handsome income.)

“The problem with medicine for me,” said Hodge with a sigh, “is that it’s a totally full-time occupation if you do it properly. The people I’ve worked with, who I respect and would hope to emulate are people who have given up a great deal to practice medicine well. They work hard and sacrifice their personal lives. They may have young children, but they still don’t get home till 10 p.m. I feel I wouldn’t want to practice and fall short of those standards. So at the moment I’m not looking for another medical job.”

He’ll stick with screenwriting, then? Hodge nodded, almost tensely: “It’s less secure, maybe--but it’s an easier lifestyle.”