Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor | |
|---|---|
 McGregor at the Stormbreaker premiere, July 2006 | |
| Born | Ewan Gordon McGregor |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Spouse | Eve Mavrakis (1995-present) |
| Awards | Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 2001 Moulin Rouge! |
Ewan Gordon McGregor (born March 31 1971; Template:PronEng)[1] is a Scottish actor who has had significant success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. He is ranked #36 in Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.[2] He is perhaps best known for playing the lead role in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel trilogy of Star Wars, his role as the romantic penniless writer in the 2001 award-winning Moulin Rouge!, and his motorcycle adventures with friend Charley Boorman.
Biography
Early life and career
McGregor was born in the Perth Royal Infirmary, was brought up in the nearby small town of Crieff, Scotland, and went to the independent fee-paying school Morrison's Academy. His mother, Carol Diane (née Lawson), is a teacher and school administrator, and his father, James Charles Stuart McGregor, is a physical education teacher.[3][4] His mother is the sister of actor Denis Lawson, the sister-in-law of the late actress Sheila Gish, and the stepaunt of the late Lou Gish. McGregor attended Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1988 to study drama. Six months before graduating, he won a leading role in Dennis Potter's six-part BBC series Lipstick on Your Collar, and has been working steadily ever since. He made his feature film debut in 1993 in Bill Forsyth's Being Human. The following year, he earned widespread praise and won an Empire Award for his performance in the thriller Shallow Grave, which marked his first collaboration with director Danny Boyle. His major international breakthrough soon followed with the role of heroin addict Mark Renton in Boyle's film version of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting (1996).
Leading man
McGregor has been featured as the male romantic lead in Hollywood films such as Moulin Rouge! and Down With Love, and in the British film Little Voice. He received excellent reviews for his performance as an amoral drifter mixed up in murder in the British film Young Adam (2003), which co-starred the acclaimed British actress Tilda Swinton.
He took on the role of a younger Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, a role originally made famous by Sir Alec Guinness in the original Star Wars films. McGregor took very special care (especially in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) in his portrayal of Kenobi to ensure that Obi-Wan's mannerisms, speech timings, and accents closely resemble Obi-Wan's "Alec Guinness Self".[5] In appearing in Star Wars films, he was continuing a family tradition of sorts: his uncle, Denis Lawson, had played Wedge Antilles in the original Star Wars trilogy. McGregor was also offered the role as James Bond in Casino Royale but turned it down because he feared becoming typecast.[6]
McGregor is one of the few major male actors to repeatedly do full-frontal nudity in many of his films, including Trainspotting, Velvet Goldmine, The Pillow Book, and Young Adam. He also played gay or bisexual characters in two of these (Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book (1996) and Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine (1998)).
In 2005, McGregor lent his voice to two successful animated features: He provided the voice of the robot Rodney Copperbottom in Robots, which also featured the voices of Halle Berry and Robin Williams. He then voiced the lead character in Gary Chapman's Valiant, alongside Jim Broadbent, John Cleese and Ricky Gervais. Additionally in 2005, McGregor played two roles (one a clone of the other) opposite Scarlett Johansson in Michael Bay's The Island and then appeared in Marc Forster's Stay, a psychological thriller co-starring Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling.
McGregor has narrated the STV show JetSet, a Scottish series following the lives of student pilots and navigators at RAF Lossiemouth as they undergo a gruelling six-month course learning to fly the Tornado GR4– the RAF's primary attack aircraft. In theatre, he starred alongside Jane Krakowski, Douglas Hodge, and Jenna Russell in the original Donmar Warehouse production of Guys and Dolls[7] in London at the Piccadilly Theatre. He played the leading role of Sky Masterson, made famous by Marlon Brando in the movie, and he received the LastMinute.com award for Best Actor in 2005.[8] He was also nominated for an Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.[9] McGregor appears opposite Colin Farrell in Cassandra's Dream, released on January 18, 2008, and will co-star with Daniel Craig in Dan Harris' upcoming film adaptation of Glen Duncan's novel I, Lucifer.
From December 2007 to February 2008, he starred as Iago in Othello at the Donmar Warehouse alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello and Kelly Reilly as Desdemona,[10][11] a role he will reprise on BBC Radio Three in May 2008.
Personal life
On July 22, 1995, in a village in France, McGregor married Eve Mavrakis, a French production designer, whom he met while filming a guest appearance on the British television series Kavanagh QC.[12] They have two daughters together, Clara Mathilde (born February 1996) and Esther Rose (born November 7, 2001). In April 2006, McGregor and his wife adopted Jamiyan, a four-year-old girl from Mongolia.[13] They currently reside in North London. McGregor refuses to talk about his family in interviews; "because it's private".[14]
A keen motorcyclist since his youth, McGregor undertook a marathon motorcycle trip with his friend Charley Boorman and cameraman Claudio von Planta in 2004. From mid-April to the end of July, they travelled from London to New York via central Europe, Ukraine, Russia (including Siberia), Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Canada on BMW R1150GS Adventure motorcycles, for a cumulative distance of 22,345 miles (35,960 km). [15][citation needed] The trip formed the basis of a TV series and a best-selling book, both called Long Way Round. En route the Long Way Round team took time out to see some of UNICEF's work in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. The Long Way Round team reunited in 2007 for another motorcycle trip from John o' Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa. The journey, entitled Long Way Down lasted from May 12 until August 5, 2007.[16]
McGregor has in the past been outspoken against other celebrities, notably fellow Scottish actor Sean Connery, about whom he is alleged to have said that he resented being told how to feel about Scotland "by someone who hadn't lived there in 25 years" — it is also said, however, that he later apologised to Connery about this quote.[17]
McGregor's brother, Colin, is a Tornado GR4 pilot in the Royal Air Force.[18]
In a November 2007 episode of Parkinson, Ewan claimed that he has given up alcohol after a period where he was arguably a functioning alcoholic, and that he has not had a drink in seven years.[19] In 2008 he had a cancerous mole removed from underneath his right eye.[20]
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Being Human | Alvarez | |
| 1994 | Shallow Grave | Alex Law | Empire Award - Best British Actor |
| 1995 | Blue Juice | Dean Raymond | |
| 1996 | Trainspotting | Mark Renton | Scottish BAFTA Awards - Best Actor in a Leading Role Empire Awards - Best British Actor ALFS Awards - British Actor of the Year Nominated: MTV Movie Awards - Best Breakthrough Performance |
| The Pillow Book | Jerome | ||
| Emma | Frank Churchill | ||
| Brassed Off | Andy | ||
| 1997 | Nightwatch | Martin Bells | |
| The Serpent's Kiss | Meneer Chrome | ||
| A Life Less Ordinary | Robert Lewis | Empire Awards - Best British Actor Nominated: MTV Movie Award - Best Dance Sequence (shared with Cameron Diaz) | |
| 1998 | Desserts | Stroller | |
| Velvet Goldmine | Curt Wild | ||
| Little Voice | Billy | Nominated: Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture - shared with Annette Badland Brenda Blethyn Jim Broadbent Michael Caine Jane Horrocks Philip Jackson | |
| 1999 | Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace | Obi-Wan Kenobi | Nominated: Saturn Award - Best Supporting Actor Nominated: Blockbuster Entertainment Awards - Favorite Actor; Action/Science Fiction Nominated: MTV Movie Award - Best Fight, shared with Liam Neeson and Ray Park |
| Rogue Trader | Nick Leeson | ||
| Eye of the Beholder | Stephen Wilson | ||
| 2000 | Nora | James Joyce | Nominated: Irish Film and Television Awards - Best Actor |
| 2001 | Moulin Rouge! | Christian | ALFS Awards - British Actor of the Year Empire Awards - Best British Actor MTV Movie Award - Best Musical Sequence (shared with Nicole Kidman) Golden Satellite Award - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical Nominated: Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture - shared with Jim Broadbent, Nicole Kidman, John Leguizamo, Richard Roxburgh Nominated: Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated: Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards - Best Actor Nominated: MTV Movie Award - Best Kiss (shared with Nicole Kidman) |
| Black Hawk Down | SPC John Grimes | Nominated: Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards - Best Acting Ensemble (shared with Eric Bana, Ewen Bremner, William Fichtner, Josh Hartnett, Jason Isaacs, Sam Shepard, Tom Sizemore) | |
| 2002 | Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones | Obi-Wan Kenobi | |
| 2003 | Down with Love | Catcher Block | |
| Young Adam | Joe Taylor | Scottish BAFTA Awards - Best Actor In A Leading Role Nominated: British Independent Film Award - Best Actor Nominated: Empire Awards - Best British Actor | |
| Faster | Narrator (voice) | ||
| Big Fish | Young Edward Bloom | ||
| 2005 | Robots | Rodney Copperbottom (voice) | |
| Valiant | Valiant (voice) | ||
| Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith | Obi-Wan Kenobi | Nominated: MTV Movie Awards - Best Fight (shared with Hayden Christensen) Nominated: MTV Movie Awards - Best Hero | |
| The Island | Lincoln Six Echo/Tom Lincoln | ||
| Stay | Sam Foster | ||
| 2006 | Scenes of a Sexual Nature | Billy | |
| Miss Potter | Norman Warne | ||
| Stormbreaker | Ian Rider | ||
| 2007 | Cassandra's Dream | Ian | |
| 2008 | Deception | Jonathan | |
| Incendiary | Jasper Black | awaiting release | |
| Jackboots on Whitehall | Chris (voice) | post-production | |
| 2009 | I Love You Phillip Morris | Phillip Morris | filming |
| I, Lucifer | Declan Gunn | on hold |
Television
- The Scarlet and the Black (1993)
- Lipstick On Your Collar (1993)
- Tales from the Crypt - Cold War (1996)
- ER (1997)
- Long Way Round (2004)
- Long Way Down (2007)
Discography
- "TV Eye" Single (Soundtrack for movie Velvet Goldmine Cover version of original song by The Stooges - 1998)
- "Gimme Danger" Single (Soundtrack for movie Velvet Goldmine Cover version of original song by The Stooges - 1998)
- "Come What May" Single (Duet with Nicole Kidman - October 2001) UK #27
- "Your Song" single
- "Elephant Love Medley" Single (Duet with Nicole Kidman - October 2001)
References
- ^ See Pronunciation of Ewan McGregor.
- ^ "Biography for Ewan McGregor". IMDb.com. Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
- ^ "Ewan McGregor biography". tiscali.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
- ^ "Ewan McGregor Biography (1971-)". filmreference.com. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
- ^ Web Documentaries of Revenge of the Sith DVD
- ^ Stansfield, Robert (2006-10-23). "007 role offered to Ewan". Daily Mirror.
- ^ Guys and Dolls musical
- ^ Singh, Anita (2005-10-25). "McGregor wins theatre award". Scotsman.
- ^ "The nominees and winners of the 2006 Laurence Olivier Awards". The Society of London Theatre. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
- ^ "Ewan McGregor returns to London stage for minimum wage". International Herald Tribune. 2007-05-12.
- ^ "Ewan McGregor to Play Iago in Othello at London's Donmar". Broadway.com. 2007-05-11.
- ^ News for "Kavanagh QC". imdb.com. Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
- ^ Silverman, Stephen M. (2006-04-12). "Ewan McGregor Adopts a Daughter". People.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Ewan McGregor. Cineman. Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
- ^ Long Ride to Self Discovery.
- ^ "Ewan McGregor gets back on his bike – this time for BBC Two. BBC.com. Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
- ^ Synnot, Siobhan (2003-07-13). "The force is with him". Scotland on Sunday. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Spencer, Ben (2006-09-18). "Ewan felt the force of my lightsaber". Daily Record.
- ^ Parkinson Interview. youTube.com. Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
- ^ McGregor fine after cancer scare, BBC, Retrieved on 22 April 2008
External links
