A TALENTED Musselburgh schoolboy is brushing shoulders with Hollywood stars in a major new drama about Robert the Bruce.

Jacob Slater, 15, a pupil at the town’s Loretto School, will appear in the American-Scottish historical action drama Outlaw King about Robert the Bruce and the Wars of Scottish Independence, which will be distributed by Netflix.

Featuring Hollywood star Chris Pine – who plays Captain Kirk in the Star Trek reboot film series – as Robert the Bruce, Outlaw King is based on the real life historical tale of the warrior king of Scots.

Jacob sings both at the wedding and funeral of Robert the Bruce.

The Loretto music scholar is no stranger to performing before a large audience. He recently performed the soprano solos from J S Bach’s St Matthew Passion with John Butt and the Dunedin Consort for a BBC Radio 4 play about The Great Passion. Many will also have heard him perform in chapel or at school concerts.

Filming for Outlaw King will continue in Linlithgow over the next three months.

Robert the Bruce lived from 1274 until 1329 and the film will cover wars with the English, pacts with the Irish, raids of the North and the conflict with King Edward II of England.

Set in the Highlands, the film tells the story of King Robert, who battled against the king of England, facing devastating odds.

He is famous for the legend of his encounter with a spider, having been defeated six times on the battlefield by the English and forced into retreat.

Hiding in a cave and close to giving up his quest for freedom from English rule, the king watched a spider attempt to spin its web across the mouth of the cave, failing six times.

When the spider, on the seventh attempt, succeeded in its attempts, Robert took heart from its efforts and resolved to battle on.

The Netflix film will feature Robert’s victory in his seventh battle at Bannockburn, where the English king was finally pushed back into his own country.