Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor, OBE is a Scottish actor. His first professional role was in 1993, when he won a leading role in the Channel 4 series Lipstick on Your Collar. He is best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting, the young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, poet Christian in the musical film Moulin Rouge!, and Dr. Alfred Jones in the romantic comedy-drama Salmon Fishing in the Yemen...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth31 March 1971
CityPerth, Scotland
I think the script is the key. Regardless of how great everybody else is working on a film, if you're working on a script that you don't think is great, you're not gonna be able to make a great film. Whereas if the script is great, then you can.
I'm lucky enough that financially I don't have to feel obliged to go for the bigger stuff. I like the stories and scripts to dictate if I want to do them.
Sometimes I feel like doing smaller budget stuff. When I did 'Young Adam', for instance, I'd come out of 'Black Hawk Down' and 'The Island', and I really wanted to be on a small film set. I wanted to be on something intimate and small again, and then 'Young Adam' cropped up in a pile of scripts I was sent.
Once you've agreed the script, you must be willing to go as far as it needs to go on set.
The script, I always believe, is the foundation of everything.
Everything you do on set is directly related to your imagination when you read the script for the first time.
Nicole - Knickers, as I call her. I would swear, burp and fart in front of her. I'd try and embarrass her and she would pretend to be shocked. I always played up on that. It was a real elder sister-younger brother relationship.' - on his and Nicole's relationship on Moulin Rouge
If we don't find some more birds fast, our goose is cooked.
No, I haven't got any tattoos. Not yet.
I think it's quite tricky for actors to release albums. It's difficult, because I'm an actor, you know, I'm not a musician. I love singing, but I don't have a big repertoire of songs that I've written; I mean, I've got a few, but nothing that I could fill an album with, and I don't want to do it just for the sake of it.
I found my partner, my life partner, and I really am in love with my wife, and we have a lovely time, and we share a long history together and children together, and that's it.
When you take away the phone and e-mail and you don't have a million things to run around to, it allows your mind the space to think more expansively about the things that matter.
I was nine years old when I made up my mind that that was what I definitely wanted to do.
You can be playing a line some way and the director wants you to change that, or you can disagree. But I always think that the creative conversation between director and actor is what leads to good work.