Best Known As: Young Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars episodes I, II and III
Ewan McGregor left school at 16 to pursue acting, and by the age of 23 was getting attention from critics and fans for his roles in the Danny Boyle films Shallow Grave (1994) and Trainspotting (1996). Quickly tagged as an up-and-comer, McGregor tackled a range of roles: he appeared in the period piece Emma (1996), the glam-rock drama Velvet Goldmine (1998), the mainstream Hollywood action feature Black Hawk Down (2001, with Josh Hartnett) and the stylish musical Moulin Rouge! (2001, with Nicole Kidman). Perhaps most famously, he played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequels of the George Lucas series Star Wars. McGregor appeared in Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999, Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. His other films include Down With Love (2003, co-starring Renee Zellweger), Tim Burton's Big Fish (2004), The Island (2005, with Scarlett Johansson), Angels and Demons (2009, starring Tom Hanks) and Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer (2010, with Pierce Brosnan). His 2004 documentary, Long Way Round, chronicled his 20,000 mile intercontinental motorcycle trip with fellow actor Charley Boorman.
McGregor's uncle is actor Denis Lawson, who played Wedge Antilles ("Red Two") in the original Star Wars (1977).
Ewan McGregor rocketed to fame over a short period of time, thanks to a brilliant turn as a heroin addict in Trainspotting and the good fortune of being selected by George Lucas and co. to portray the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace. Because Menace arrived amid concomitant fanfare and massive prerelease expectations in early summer 1999, McGregor's appearance in the new trilogy drew a whirlwind of media attention and elicited a series of roles in additional box-office blockbusters, launching the then 28-year-old actor into megastardom.
Born on March 31, 1971, in the Scottish town of Crieff, on the southern edge of the Highlands, McGregor joined the Perth Repertory Theatre after high school graduation and subsequently trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His studies at Guildhall led to a key role in Dennis Potter's 1993 Lipstick on Your Collar, a made-for-television musical comedy set during the Suez Crisis. That same year, McGregor received first billing in the British television miniseries Scarlet & Black, an adaptation of Henri Beyle Stendhal's 1830 period novel about a young social climber in post-Napoleonic, late 19th century Europe.
McGregor made a well-pedigreed cinematic debut, with a bit part in Bill Forsyth's episodic American drama Being Human (1993), starring Robin Williams. The picture, however, undeservedly flopped and closed almost as soon as it opened, rendering McGregor's contribution ineffectual. The actor continued to turn up on television on both sides of the Atlantic until late 1996; some of his more notable work during this period includes his turn as a beleaguered gunman in an episode of ER and the Cold War episode of Tales From the Crypt, in which he plays a vampiric thief.
McGregor landed his cinematic breakthrough role with Danny Boyle's noirish, heavily stylized Shallow Grave (1994). In that film, he essays the role of Alex, a journalist who finds himself in a horrendous position after a murder. He appeared in Carl Prechezer's little-seen British surfing parable Blue Juice (1995) and Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book (1996) before losing almost 30 pounds and shaving his head for his turn as heroin addict Mark Renton in Trainspotting, his sophomore collaboration with Danny Boyle, which gained the attention of critics and audiences worldwide. McGregor then took a 180-degree turn (and projected unflagging versatility) by portraying Frank Churchill in the elegant historical comedy Emma (1996).
McGregor continued to work at an impressive pace after Emma, with appearances in Brassed Off (1996), Nightwatch (1998), The Serpent's Kiss (1997), and yet another project with Danny Boyle, the 1997 fantasy A Life Less Ordinary. (The latter film concludes on a raffish note, with an animated puppet of Ewan McGregor dressed in a kilt that bears the McGregor family tartan). In 1998, the actor signed to appear in the Star Wars prequels. (Lucas' decision to hire McGregor for Obi-Wan in the Star Wars prequels was hardly capricious; his uncle, Denis Lawson, had appeared as Wedge Antilles, decades earlier, in the original three installments of the series.) That same year, McGregor contributed a fine performance to Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine, with his portrayal of an iconoclastic, Iggy Pop-like singer during the 1970s glam rock era.
As the new millennium dawned, McGregor had a full slate of projects before him, including several for his own production shingle, Natural Nylon, co-founded by McGregor and fellow actors Jude Law, Sean Pertwee, Sadie Frost, and fellow Trainspotter Jonny Lee Miller. Pat Murphy's biopic Nora (2000, co-produced by Wim Wenders' banner Road Movies Filmproduktion and by Metropolitan pictures), represented one of the first films to emerge from this production house. As a dramatization of the real-life relationship between James Joyce and Nora Barnacle, Nora stars McGregor as Joyce and Susan Lynch as the eponymous Nora.
The actor stayed in period costume for his other film that year, Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. Set in 1899 Paris, it stars McGregor as a young poet who becomes enmeshed in the city's sex, drugs, and cancan scene and embarks on a tumultuous relationship with a courtesan (Nicole Kidman). Following a turn in Black Hawk Down (2001), McGregor reprised his role as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the eagerly anticipated Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones.
2003 saw McGregor taking advantage of an odd quirk. Years prior, a magazine had commented on the uncanny resemblance between the young Scotch actor and the legendary Albert Finney as a young man. In dire need of a twenty- or thirty-something to portray Finney's younger self for his fantasy Big Fish, Tim Burton cast McGregor in the role; he fit the bill with something close to utter perfection. In that same year's erotic drama Young Adam (directed by David Mackenzie and originally screened at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival), McGregor plays one of two barge workers unlucky enough to dredge up the nearly naked corpse of a young woman. The young actor also starred alongside Renée Zellweger, who, fresh from the success of Chicago, played the unlikely love interest of McGregor's preening, sexist Catcher Block in Down With Love, director Peyton Reed's homage to '60s romantic comedies.
McGregor returned to the role of Obie-Wan Kenobi once again in 2005 for Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, the final film in George Lucas' epic saga. That same year, he lent his voice to the computer-animated family film Robots and starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in Michael Bay's big-budget sci-fi actioner The Island. He also secured the lead role of Sam Foster, a psychiatrist attempting to locate a suicidal patient, in Finding Neverland director Marc Forster's follow-up to that earlier hit, the mindbender Stay. Though that picture died a quick death at the box office, McGregor returned the following year as Ian Rider, a secret agent whose assassination sparks the adventure of a lifetime for his young nephew, in Geoffrey Sax's Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker. The film only had a limited run in the U.S., and was panned by critics.
In late 2006, McGregor once again demonstrated his crossover appeal with turns in two much artier films: Scenes of a Sexual Nature and Miss Potter. The former -- Ed Blum's directorial debut, from a script by Aschlin Ditta -- is an ensemble piece about the illusions and realities in the relationships of seven British couples over the course of an afternoon on Hampstead Heath. The latter -- director Chris Noonan's long-awaited follow-up to his 1995 hit Babe -- is a biopic on the life of the much-loved children's author Beatrix Potter (played by Renée Zellweger). McGregor portrays Norman, her editor and paramour.
McGregor was next cast in Marcel Langenegger's 2007 thriller The Tourist as Jonathan, an accountant who meets his dream girl at a local strip club but immediately becomes the prime suspect when the woman vanishes, and is accused of a multimillion-dollar theft.
McGregor married French-born production designer Eve Mavrakis in 1995, with whom he has three children. ~ Steven E. McDonald, Rovi
Ewan Gordon McGregor
31 March 1971 (1971-03-31)(age 40) Perth, Scotland
Occupation
Actor
Years active
1993–present
Spouse
Eve Mavrakis (1995–present; 4 children)
Ewan Gordon McGregor (born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor who has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. He is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting (1996), JediObi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), and poet Christian in the musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001). He has also received critical acclaim for his starring roles in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls (2005–07) and Othello (2007–08). McGregor was ranked No. 36 on Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in 1997.[1]
Born in the Royal Infirmary in Perth, Scotland, McGregor was brought up in the nearby small town of Crieff, where he attended the independent Morrison's Academy. His mother, Carole Diane (née Lawson), is a teacher and school administrator, and his father, James Charles Stewart "Jim" McGregor, is a physical education teacher.[2][3] He has an older brother, Colin, who is a former Tornado GR4 pilot in the Royal Air Force.[4][5] He is the nephew of actor Denis Lawson and the late actress Sheila Gish, and the step-cousin of the late actress Lou Gish.[6] McGregor studied drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.[6]
Career
Film and television
In 1993, six months prior to his graduation from Guildhall, McGregor won a leading role in Dennis Potter's six-part Channel 4 series Lipstick on Your Collar.[6] That same year, he starred in the BBC adaptation of Scarlet and Black with a young Rachel Weisz, and made his film debut in Bill Forsyth's Being Human.[7] In 1994, McGregor earned critical praise for his performance in the thriller Shallow Grave, for which he won an Empire Award,[8] and which marked his first collaboration with director Danny Boyle.[6] His international breakthrough followed in 1996 with the role of heroin addict Mark Renton in Boyle's Trainspotting, an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel of the same name.[6][7] The film was the first of several times that McGregor would appear nude on screen; he told The Scotsman in 2003 that audiences in the United States are "a bit worried about seeing my old chap", referring to his foreskin and the cultural influence of infant circumcision in the U.S.
From November 1998 to March 1999, McGregor starred as Malcolm Scrawdykein in a production of Little Malcolm and His Struggles Against the Eunuchs, directed by his uncle, Denis Lawson. The play was first staged at the Hampstead Theatre before transferring to the Comedy Theatre in London's West End.[22] In November 2001, McGregor made a cameo appearance in The Play What I Wrote.[23]
A keen motorcyclist since his youth, McGregor undertook a marathon international motorcycle trip with his best 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).[29] The trip formed the basis of a television series and a best-selling book, both called Long Way Round.[30]
The Long Way Round team reunited in 2007 for another motorcycle trip from John o' Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa.[30] The journey, entitled Long Way Down, lasted from 12 May until 5 August 2007.[30] McGregor's brother Colin joined the motorcycle team during the early stages of the Long Way Down journey,[4][30] and his father Jim also rode on sections of both Long Way Round and Long Way Down.[31][32]
In September 2010, Charley Boorman stated that the third instalment of the Long Way series is planned for 2011, riding up through South America.
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 in 1994.[6] They have four daughters, Clara Mathilde (born February 1996), Esther Rose (born 7 November 2001), Jamiyan (born June 2001 in Mongolia; adopted April 2006),[33] and a girl whose name has not been released (born January 2011).[34][35][36] McGregor has a heart and dagger tattoo of the names of his wife and daughters on his right arm.[10][37] The family currently resides in Los Angeles, California, after moving from London.[38]
McGregor is involved in charity work, including with UNICEF and GO Campaign. During the Long Way Round journey in 2004, McGregor and his travelling companions took time out to see some of UNICEF's work in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia,[30] and during the Long Way Down trip in 2007, he and Charley Boorman did work for UNICEF in Africa. McGregor hosted the annual Hollywood gala for GO Campaign in 2009 and 2010. He has also worked with the Children's Hospice Association Scotland, as featured in Long Way Down.
In 2007, on an episode of Parkinson, McGregor stated that he had given up alcohol after a period where he was arguably a functioning alcoholic, and that he had not had a drink in seven years.[39] In 2008, he had a cancerous mole removed from underneath his right eye.[40]
Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Ewan McGregor. Read more
_color.jpg)
