EWAN McGREGOR (Valiant) was born in 1971 in Crieff, Scotland. Despite a small-town upbringing, he became enthralled with the world of acting from an early age and was largely inspired by his uncle, Denis Lawson (of “Local Hero” fame). As a tiny child, he would return home to watch old black-and-white movie classics, rather than contemporary television programs of the day. His passion for the silver screen was crystallized in 1977 when, as a 6-year-old, he was taken to see his uncle play fighter pilot Wedge Antilles in “Star Wars.” Like millions of other small boys in the world, he was spellbound. He saw the film so many times that he could recite practically the whole script without drawing breath—one of life’s ironies that would take over twenty years to unfold.
Six months before his graduation at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, McGregor was offered the role of Private Mick Hopper in Dennis Potter’s six-part musical comedy television series “Lipstick on Your Collar.” Shortly after this break, he landed his first film role in Bill Forsyth’s “Being Human,” where the producer, Lord David Puttnam, was so impressed by McGregor’s abilities that he added extra scenes for him. Puttnam said: “McGregor has the same quality that a certain select group of actors have. Once you watch them, they mesmerize you and you forget you are watching an actor, because they appeal to you personally.”
Following his portrayal of an over-sexed hotel bellhop in the classic adult comedy play “What the Butler Saw” and the romantic lead as the French adventurer Julien Sorel in a BBC production of “Scarlet and Black,” McGregor starred in the BAFTA Award-winning “Shallow Grave.” The confidence with which he balanced this dark comedic role, coupled with the success of the film, pushed the young Scottish actor into the limelight. His portrayal of Alex Law earned him the Hitchcock D’Argent Best Actor Award and a nomination for Best Actor at the BAFTA Scotland Awards, as well as laying the roots for a highly successful partnership with the director, Danny Boyle. He then went on to portray the shifty London drug dealer Dean Raymond in “Blue Juice” opposite an up-and-coming Catherine Zeta-Jones, followed by his first solo lead in cult director Peter Greenaway’s art-house erotic film, “The Pillow Book.”
Although “Shallow Grave” provided McGregor with his breakthrough role, it was his portrayal of heroin addict Mark Renton in Irvine Walsh’s “Trainspotting” that catapulted him to international fame. To prepare for this role, he worked closely with ex-drug addicts who helped provide him with a level of insight needed to tackle the graphic portrayal of drug addiction and withdrawal—scenes that have now become classics in film history.
“Trainspotting” won a string of prestigious awards, including the BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Feature Film, while McGregor himself picked up BAFTA Scotland’s Best Actor accolade and, for the second year running, the Empire magazine award for Best British Actor.
After the success of “Trainspotting,” McGregor eluded any danger of typecasting by taking on the contrasting role of Frank Churchill opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel “Emma.” After this, he starred opposite Tara Fitzgerald in Mark Herman’s Cesar award-winning “Brassed Off,” which juggled humor and pathos by portraying the fate of a brass band in a small community threatened by the politically motivated coal mine closures in the early 1980s.
Ewan McGregor’s US film debut arrived in the shape of “Nightwatch,” a grisly slasher movie filmed in LA in which he played the lead role of Marin Bwelos, a law student who worked part-time as a mortuary night watchman. Walk-on parts in the BBC Dennis Potter series “Karaoke” and “Cold Lazarus” provided him with a chance to return to Britain before starring as a Dutch landscape artist in Philippe Rousselot’s “The Serpent’s Kiss” with Pete Postlethwaite, Greta Scacchi and Richard E. Grant.
Following his second short feature for director Justin Chadwick, “Swimming with Fishes,” McGregor teamed up with Cameron Diaz in the quirky romantic fantasy “A Life Less Ordinary,” which reunited him with director Danny Boyle. McGregor’s character portrayal of the sweet innocent Robert won him the Best British Actor award in the 1997 Empire Movie Awards for the third time running. During 1997, he also received a much-coveted Emmy® Award for Outstanding Guest Actor for his role in an episode of “ER,” “The Long Way Round.”
He then went on to play Curt Wild, a crazed seventies rock star in the glam-rock film “Velvet Goldmine,” with Michael Stipe of REM as Executive Producer, followed by a portrayal of the infamous trader Nick Leeson and his spectacular fall from grace in “Rogue Trader” opposite Anna Friel. Shortly after this, Golden Globe®-winning “Little Voice” saw him team up again with “Brassed Off ” director Mark Herman, where he starred alongside Jane Horrocks and Michael Caine.
Life came full circle for Ewan McGregor when he landed the part of Obi-Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace,” the legendary role once played by Sir Alec Guinness. Impressed by his skillful character portrayal, director George Lucas then invited him back to star in the sequels, “Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones,” which was released in 2002, and “Star Wars: Episode III,” which debuted in May 2005.
In 1998, McGregor went behind the camera to co-produce “Nora,” the story of the romance between writer James Joyce (McGregor) and Nora Barnacle (Susan Lynch). In Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar® and BAFTA award-winning musical “Moulin Rouge,” McGregor played Christian, a poet who falls in love with Satine (Nicole Kidman), a courtesan of the tragic-comic underworld of the “Moulin Rouge,” with music drawn from 20thcentury pop songs. McGregor described the challenge of singing, dancing and acting as something he had wanted to do all his life. He then went on to reprise his role as Obi-Wan for “Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones.” In 2001, he jumped into an entirely different role, starring as Grimes, a Ranger specialist in Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down,” a film based on the actual events of two U.S. soldiers who were dropped in war-torn Somalia in 1993 to capture two lieutenants of a renegade warlord.
Since then, McGregor has filmed “Young Adam,” an original thriller based on a novel by Scottish beat writer Alexander Trocchi, set in the working canals between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The film was a tremendous critical success, and he was rewarded with a London Film Critics Circle Awards nomination.
In 2002, McGregor starred in “Down With Love” opposite Renee Zellweger, a romantic comedy in the vein of the 1960s films of Doris Day and Rock Hudson. He then went on to Alabama to shoot Tim Burton’s “Big Fish,” and then to Australia for Episode III of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” prequel trilogy. This was followed by the supernatural thriller “Stay,” co-starring with Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling.
In 2004, McGregor took time off to fulfill a longheld ambition to ride a motorbike around the world with his good friend, Charley Boorman. A documentary charting their progress, “Long Way Round,” aired on Bravo in the US and Sky One in the UK. A book of their journey, “Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World,” remains on the bestsellers list in both countries.
In late 2004, McGregor returned to the States to start work on Michael Bay’s “The Island,” alongside Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou and Steve Buscemi. Ewan McGregor is recognized as one of the finest British actors in the world and has been described both by Vanity Fair (on whose cover he has appeared three times) and Time Out as “the saviour of the British film industry.”
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