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Ewan McGregor
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Ewan Gordon McGregor (born 31 March 1971; ) is a Scottish actor, singer, and adventurer who has had success in mainstream, indie and art house films. He is perhaps best known for playing the lead role in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, his portrayal of the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, his role as the romantic penniless writer, Christian, in the 2001 award-winning Moulin Rouge!, and his motorcycle adventures with friend Charley Boorman in Long Way Round and Long Way Down.
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Encyclopedia
Ewan Gordon McGregor (born 31 March 1971; ) is a Scottish actor, singer, and adventurer who has had success in mainstream, indie and art house films. He is perhaps best known for playing the lead role in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, his portrayal of the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, his role as the romantic penniless writer, Christian, in the 2001 award-winning Moulin Rouge!, and his motorcycle adventures with friend Charley Boorman in Long Way Round and Long Way Down. He is due to appear in the upcoming films I Love You Phillip Morris and Amelia and will portray the camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Carlo Ventresca) in the film adaption of Angels & Demons, awaiting release in 2009.
Aside from his film work, McGregor has starred in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls. He also appeared in television series such as The Scarlet and the Black, Lipstick On Your Collar, Tales from the Crypt, and ER. He was ranked No. 36 in Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
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. His mother is the sister of actor Denis Lawson, the sister-in-law of the late actress Sheila Gish, and the step-aunt 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. McGregor 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).
Star Wars
In 1999, McGregor starred in the blockbuster Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi, a role originally made famous by Sir Alec Guinness in the original Star Wars trilogy. He reprised his role for the subsequent prequels Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). McGregor took very special care (especially in Revenge of the Sith) in his portrayal to ensure that Obi-Wan's mannerisms, speech timings, and accents closely resemble Obi-Wan's "Alec Guinness Self". In appearing in the Star Wars films, he was continuing a family tradition of sorts: his uncle, Denis Lawson, had played Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy.
Other work
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 Scottish film Young Adam (2003), which co-starred the acclaimed Scottish actress Tilda Swinton. McGregor was offered the lead role as James Bond in the 2006 reboot Casino Royale but he turned it down because he feared becoming typecast.
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 and bisexual characters in Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book (1996) and Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine (1998).
In 2005, McGregor lent his voice to two successful animated features; the robot Rodney Copperbottom in Robots, which also featured the voices of Halle Berry and Robin Williams; and 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 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. He was also nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. McGregor appears opposite Colin Farrell in Cassandra's Dream, and will co-star with Daniel Craig in Dan Harris' upcoming film adaptation of Glen Duncan's novel I, Lucifer.. He will also be featured along with Jim Carrey in the 2009 film I Love You Phillip Morris.
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, a role he will reprise on BBC Radio 3 in May 2008.
Personal life
On 22 July 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. They have two daughters together, Clara Mathilde (born February 1996) and Esther Rose (born 7 November 2001). In April 2006, McGregor and his wife adopted Jamiyan, a four-year-old girl from Mongolia (born June 2001). McGregor refuses to talk about his family in interviews; "because it's private." During the "fly-on-the-wall" filming of preparation for the Long Way Round and Long Way Down journeys, McGregor went to great lengths to keep his children and information that could reveal the location of his house away from the cameras. Unlike travelling companion Charley Boorman, whose daughters often appeared in front of the cameras, McGregor's children were not present at the send-off or any other filmed parts of either adventure.
McGregor confirmed in an interview with the Sunday Times magazine that he and his family have now moved to California, as living in America offers him greater privacy and he has been able to devote more time to motorcycling and learning to fly small aircraft.
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). The trip formed the basis of a television 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 12 May until 5 August 2007.
McGregor has taken paragliding lessons.
McGregor once criticized fellow Scottish actor Sean Connery, saying that he resented being told how to feel about Scotland "by someone who hadn't lived there in 25 years". However, he later apologised to Connery, after Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond, for whose party Connery is an occasional spokesman, contacted him about the statement.
McGregor's brother, Colin, is a Tornado GR4 pilot in the Royal Air Force. Colin joined the motorcycle team during the early stages of the Long Way Down journey. His father Jim McGregor also rode on sections of both Long Way Round and Long Way Down, while his mother Carol surprised him in the latter stages of his African journey, serving him a can of Coca-Cola at a lodge in Malawi.
In an episode of Parkinson in 2007, McGregor 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. In 2008, he had a cancerous mole removed from underneath his right eye.
Filmography
Television
Discography
- "Gimme Danger" single (Soundtrack for movie Velvet Goldmine Cover version of original song by The Stooges - 1998)
- "TV Eye" 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)
- "Here's To Love" (Duet with Renee Zellweger - Soundtrack for movie Down With Love - 2003)
Further reading
- Adams, Billy. Ewan McGregor: The Unauthorized Biography. Overlooks Press, 1999. ISBN 0879517042
- Bassom, David. Ewan McGregor: An Illustrated Story. Hamlyn, 1999. ISBN 0600596532
- Jones, Veda Boyd. Ewan McGregor. Facts On File Inc., 1999. ISBN 0791055019
- Nickson, Chris. Ewan McGregor: An Unauthorized Biography. Macmillan, 1999. ISBN 0312969104
- Pendreigh, Brian. Ewan McGregor. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999. ISBN 1560252391
- Robb, Brian J. Ewan McGregor: From Junkie to Jedi. Plexus, 1999. ISBN 0859652769
External links
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