Ewan McGregor

Profession: Actor
Place/Date of Birth: Crieff, 31 March 1971

Trainspotting had impact - Ewan - Jan 21 2008
His heroin addict role of Renton in Trainspotting may have provided Ewan McGregor with his big break, but it also made more of an impact than his three Star Wars prequels, the actor says.

"My feeling is that, in terms of impact, something like Trainspotting has more, because people went, 'F---! What's with this?'" he told Entertainment Weekly magazine.

"So, in a way it's got more of an impact than Star Wars, when people are expecting something like that anyway.

"It's difficult to tell how they affect you career-wise," he added.

"That's why it's best not to play that game. It's best to be in it for the stories and for the love of it. If you're making your decisions based on that, then you do end up working with first time directors and you work with Ridley Scott and Tim Burton.

"I've been lucky to work both with fantastic directors who were starting out and others who have been making films for a long time."

Ewan’s life or death moment - Oct 30 2007
Ewan McGregor has apparently revealed that he had a very near miss with an antelope on his latest motorbike expedition.

The 36-year-old actor and his biking pal Charley Boorman ventured from John O’Groats to South Africa in BBC Two’s Long Way Down, and they had a rather hairy encounter on their last day, reports the Daily Star.

Ewan is quoted as saying: "We were doing about 80mph on this left-hand band in Namibia. All of a sudden I saw this huge kudu, or antelope. I couldn’t really change direction. This thought came into my head: ’He can either walk left and it’s all f****** over for me. Or he can turn right and everybody is laughing."

He added: "Luckily for me the kudu went right. I thought I’d be road kill. And they eat road kill."

But the run in with the antelope wasn’t Ewan’s only potentially disastrous experience on the trip - they also braved sandstorms in Libya, machine gun attacks from bandits and food poisoning.

’Nanny state’ may force Ewan abroad - Oct 23 2007
Actor Ewan McGregor says Britain’s "nanny state" could cause him to move abroad.

The Trainspotting star has just completed an epic 15,000-mile motorbike journey across Africa with best friend Charley Boorman.

And he told the Radio Times: "Our trip opened my eyes to how insane the rules are in Britain - CCTV cameras everywhere, congestion charge - a ludicrous nanny state.

"If anything drives me out of the country it will be that - not tax, I don’t earn enough."

Health and safety rules can affect actors - when Daniel Craig was unveiled as the new James Bond, he was made to wear a life jacket during a River Thames boat stunt before the world’s media.

"It’s not his fault. He’s doing what he’s told," Ewan sympathised. "Today, health and safety are out of control. In Africa, garage attendants smoked as they filled the bikes. I took great pleasure in that."

The pair’s trip from John O’Groats to Cape Agulhas at the tip of South Africa was captured on film for BBC2 series Long Way Down.

The journey took them through 18 countries and Ewan said he was touched by the kindness of the people he met in Africa.

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Biography

Ewan Gordon McGregor was born on March 31st 1971 on the small Scottish coastal town of Crieff.

He started out at the local Morrison Academy and at the age of sixteen made his way down to the big smoke to train at the Guildhall School. Ewan got an early break thanks to Dennis Potter, who cast him in the critically acclaimed TV show Lipstick on Your Collar in 1993, just before his graduation. The small role got Ewan noticed and soon after leaving Guildhall he was cast in Bill Forsyth’s Being Human.

Ewan wasn’t about to hang around making mediocre movies though. In 1994 he was cast as Alex, one of three lead characters in Danny Boyle’s excellent Shallow Grave, which won a Bafta for Best British Film. His breakthrough came two years later, again thanks to Danny Boyle. Ewan was cast as the lead character, heroin addict Mark Renton, in cult classic Trainspotting. The controversial movie became the seminal nineties film, loved by young people all over Britain while Ewan became British cinema’s hottest property, the film world’s answer to Damon Albarn in a Brit-pop obsessed country.

From then on Ewan made sure he didn’t become stereotyped, taking parts in everything from arty intelligent projects like Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book (which helped to cement the reputation of a certain of Ewan’s body parts as a star as...ahem, big as its owner) to costume dramas - Jane Austen’s Emma - to gritty northern dramas such as the critically acclaimed Brassed Off.

By 1997’s A Life Less Ordinary Ewan was a global superstar and was the obvious choice for a role in then biggest movie franchise in history. Ewan’s role as Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels may not have allowed him to flex his acting muscles but it did send him stratospheric, and while he kept on with the quirky projects such as Big Fish and Moulin Rouge! he was also able to command huge salaries for each appearance and make action blockbusters such as The Island and Stormbreaker as well as costume dramas such as Miss Potter. He is set to appear in Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream and as the devil in I, Lucifer in 2007.

The huge fame that came with these movies also allowed Ewan to branch out with his own projects - notably The Long Way Round, a TV show which saw Ewan and pal Charley Boorman attempt a motorcycle trip from London to New York. As well as plenty of time in front of the camera Ewan, along with Sadie Frost, Jude Law, Sean Pertwee and Jonny Lee Miller, keeps his hand in behind the lens with Natural Nylon a production company owned by the Brit Pack A list.
updated January 2007

Ewan has been married to make up artist Eve Mavrakis since 1995. They met on the set of TV drama Kavanagh QC and now have two daughters Clara Mathilde and Esther Rose. In April 2006 the couple also adopted a four year old girl from Mongolia.
January 2008

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