American actor Chris Pine on playing King of Scots Robert the Bruce in Netflix’s Outlaw King

Some 30 minutes outside Glasgow stands Mugdock Country Park, a beautiful rural space known for its tranquillity – usually. Today, on a cold December afternoon, it’s playing host to the set of Outlaw King, the new film from Scottish director David Mackenzie, which tells the story of one of Scotland’s most famous sons, 14th century warrior king Robert the Bruce.

“It’s a great story of somebody who went right down to the bottom and pulled himself back up,” says Mackenzie, sporting an unkempt thick beard that Robert himself might be proud of.

So the legend goes, Robert hid in a cave for months at his lowest ebb but took inspiration from watching a spider spinning its web, the creature never giving up even after it repeatedly fell.

While Outlaw King only indirectly references the spider story, it shows how Robert took a rag-tag bunch of men and repelled the English troops of Edward I and his son Edward II, Prince of Wales. Climaxing at the infamous Battle of Loudoun Hill, it’s this scene that’s occupying Mackenzie today, as he marshals hundreds of extras, dressed in chain mail and carrying (fake) broadswords.

“It’s an incredibly physical job,” says the director, sheltering behind the camera from the icy wind. “Everything they’re doing – the horses, the armour and swords. Everywhere you go it’s physical. I wanted the film to feel really elemental and physical. Epic realism is the target. We’re trying our hardest to make the medieval world come to life.”