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.
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.
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.
Once you've agreed the script, you must be willing to go as far as it needs to go on set.
Everything you do on set is directly related to your imagination when you read the script for the first time.
The script, I always believe, is the foundation of everything.
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.
When I was a kid I was much happier watching old movies than kids' TV, and I ended up watching all the old Ealing comedies.
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.
If we don't find some more birds fast, our goose is cooked.
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.
No, I haven't got any tattoos. Not yet.
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
The script, I always believe, is the foundation of everything. And if you don't connect to that foundation, if you don't believe in that and feel that you wanna spend three, four months of your life exploring it, then all of the other elements are secondary.