HE HAS played deranged killers, brutal prison guards, and Frankenstein’s monster, but is perhaps best known as an immortal barbarian intent on beheading Sean Connery. It is thirty years since Clancy Brown, arrived in Scotland to film Highlander, the fantasy epic in which he made his name as a savage warrior hunting down fellow immortals across the centuries.

One of the guilty pleasure of eighties cinema, the time-shifting 1986 movie, shot in the Scottish Highlands, London and New York by Australian rock music video director Russell Mulcahy, continues to exert an extraordinary enduring appeal and has now been digitally restored for a 30th anniversary re-release in cinemas and on DVD.

Brown has just finished filming Stronger, playing against type opposite Miranda Richardson as the estranged parents of a survivor of the 2013 Boston Marathon bomb, Jeff Bauman, with Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role. Stronger, based on Bauman's best selling book, is set for release in the autumn.

When we meet in Edinburgh's Caledonian Hotel, Brown, 57, sports a head of wavy grey hair and a ready smile softens his features, but with a prominent brow, hooded eyes and an imposing 6’4” frame enhanced by a deep sonorous voice it is no surprise that he has carved out a career as a quintessential Hollywood heavy, starting with the monstrous Kurgan in Highlander,

The US actor is, however, is well aware that the much-loved action adventure is littered with bizarre contradictions and dubious accents, with an immortal highland warrior, Connor Macleod, played by French actor, Christopher Lambert, who had to learn English during filming, a flamboyant Spanish nobleman, Ramirez, played by Sean Connery with an unreconstructed Scottish accent, and a giant Russian savage, The Kurgan, played by Brown, then a relatively unknown 27 year old from the small town of Urbana, Ohio.

“It's one of those movies that is greater than the sum of its parts," says Brown, “It is very silly, there's a lot of plot holes and strange characters. Yet it has great set pieces, fantastic camera work, and some moving scenes with these amazing operatic songs from Freddie Mercury and Queen. It’s a weird movie but it seems to keep on striking a chord with people.”

Film student Gregory Widen originally wrote the script for Highlander as a class assignment while he was an undergraduate at UCLA. Picked up by a Hollywood producer, it was, inevitably, heavily re-written before going into production.

“When I first read it, I liked the idea of these immortals secretly living in every culture and I thought it had great symbolism," says Brown, “What it turned into was this mishmash of fantasy, action and rock and roll. But I liked it – I mean it was a romp. Sure, it’s a piece of hokum, but so is Star Wars, and Highlander has the same kind of alchemy going for it.”

The actor landed the part of the Kurgan after playing Frankenstein’s monster opposite Sting in 1985's The Bride, an anaemic take on the classic horror story.

"In LA I heard that Russell (Mulcahy,the director) was having trouble casting the villain in this new movie," says Brown, "I'd just worked with Sting and he recommended me to Russell. So I met with the producer and he told me they weren’t going to pay me anything but they were going to shoot it in Scotland and London, and I leapt at the chance to go to the Highlands."

Brown arrived on location in the Highlands after filming was well underway in and around Eilean Donan Castle, Glen Coe and Skye, and found himself in the midst of chaotic 16th century clan battles re-enacted by over-enthusiastic extras fuelled by liquid lunches.

“I’d go the pub with all these Scottish biker guys who were hired to play the clansmen," says Brown, "They dressed them in kilts and gave them mock weapons and they really went at each other in the battle scenes. There was real blood and concussions and they had ambulances on standby. It was pretty crazy, but it was fun.”

After filming with drunken extras in the Highlands, Brown first encountered a taciturn Connery in a London studio.

“It was pretty overwhelming to meet that kind of a movie star," says Brown, “And at that time Sean was the best looking thing on the set, even counting some gorgeous women in the cast. All he said was, nice to meet you, do you golf? And I said no, and that was it. The next time he spoke to me we were in a castle fighting each other in a scene where I was about to decapitate him. I’m sure if I’d said I was golfer we would have been friends for life.”

Highlander, however, sparked an unlikely resurgence in Connery's career after a three year hiatus from the big screen following his final James Bond outing, Never Say Never Again. In his next film The Untouchables, his performance as a veteran Irish cop brought him an Academy Award.

Brown went on to play a host of villainous roles, including the unrelentingly brutal prison guard captain in The Shawshank Redemption, another iconic film, for vastly different reasons, that did poor box office on release but became an extraordinary best seller on video.

Similarly, Highlander was a box office flop on its initial U.S. release, later achieving a slow burn global success in the emergent video and DVD market, along with persistent rumours of a big budget remake .

“I think there’s some great ideas in Highlander that were never fully explored and its worthy of a reboot ,” says Brown, “I joked once I’d like Sean’s role because I’m now Sean’s age when he made it. But I’d be flattered to be in the re make in some way.”

The Highlander 30th anniversary restoration is out on DVD this week and screens at the Belmont Filmhouse, Aberdeen tomorrow, Filmhouse Edinburgh on Monday and Eden Court Inverness on August 29.