Ewan McGregor – 25 years ago, unfiltered and innocent

                                                 September 1997 By Philip Berk 

Even after the success of Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, who in the world would have spotted Ewan McGregor as Britain’s best export since the Beatles, but that’s just what he’s become.

Call it crazy, but when was the last time a newcomer starred in four movies in one year. And in almost all of them he’s not only unabashedly naked, he’s fully frontal and totally oblivious to it.

Earlier in the year, he admitted to In Style magazine, “Yes I have a big cock, yes I’ve been been naked in all my films.” All except his latest, A Life Less Ordinary in which he plays a hapless Scotsman seeking revenge in America while  falling in love with a millionairess, played by Cameron Diaz.

So how does he shape up in this one?

Totally disarming! And when he flashes those innocent eyes, expect audiences to fall into a swoon.

Even George Lucas is impressed.

He  signed  him to play  the young Obi Wan Kenobi in the upcoming Star Wars prequel, budgeted at a staggering, for Lucas, $80 million!

And if that isn’t enough, he has no less than fifteen films in pre-production!

So is he ready to become  the next Sean Connery?

“Sean Connery?  He’s a fantastic actor.  I like him a lot.  But I don’t aspire to be anybody else.  I just aspire to be myself.  I don’t hope to follow anybody else’s career but my own really.”  

Has he ever met him?”

“I spoke to him once on the telephone, but I’ve never met him.”

Does he, like Sean Connery, have “Scotland Forever” tattooed on his arm?.  

“I don’t have any tattoos, but I’m fiercely proud of being Scottish. I don’t live there but I’m Scottish, it’s as much my identity as I have. I was brought up without any religion or anything.  My wife’s Jewish, and being Jewish is an identity thing for her, so being Scottish is an identity thing for me.  I live in London.  My home is now London.  I couldn’t live anywhere else.  I love London with a passion,  but it doesn’t mean I dislike Scotland in any way. My best films have been the ones I’ve been Scots in really.”

What does he think of Scottish independence?

“I’ve got no idea.  I haven’t lived there since ’89.  I think it’s slightly worrying – they should have it, of course, because the majority of people  want it,  but I don’t understand why. I can’t see if it’s going to be a good thing, it could  mean that the Scottish people will have to pay more taxes but whether it’ll them happier,  I don’t know.  Probably not.  They’re a miserable people, the Scots.”

Why isn’t he more patriotic?

“I’ve a much more global idea about the whole thing.  We’re all living on a planet yet everyone is trying to segregate.  Imagine if every state in America wanted its independence.  It would be a complete shambles.  Lots of wars caused over that kind of stuff, either breaking it apart or putting it back together. Whatever.  So I don’t know.”  

He was nine when he decided he wanted to be an actor. What inspired him?“

“There were three things.  Firstly, my uncle was an actor.  I come from this very small conservative place and he used to come up from London in sheepskin waistcoats and beads and long hair and no shoes and he’d give you flowers and stuff and I went, ‘Who is this man?  He’s incredible.’ He was just so different, and I felt the need to be different too, I guess, although I had no idea what acting was about. The second thing was I was completely addicted to old black and white movies from Hollywood or Ealing from the 30’s and 40’s.  Anything black and white and slushy, Jimmy Stewart movies, Cagney movies, any of those old ones I just couldn’t stop watching them.  I loved them more than television.  I loved them more than children’s programs and stuff.   So I was passionate about that. And the third thing that inspired me was going to the pantomime, where it’s traditional that the leading boy is played by a woman?  I don’t know why it is, but in Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack is always  played by a woman and she would always wear fishnet stockings.  I was obsessed with the principal boy’s legs.  It has a lot to do with sex.  I always felt very sexy when I was in the theatre.  I always used to fall in love with actresses in the theatre and  that’s probably another reason, it’s a very sexy profession.”

So how did he convince his parents that he should leave home at 16 and go into the theatre?

“My parents were brilliant.  I went to this school where my father was the physical education teacher, and my brother who is two years older than me had been head boy.  There’s this archaic system.  I don’t know if you have it in schools in America where you have prefects,  it’s kind of like a mini-Gestapo — they choose ten boys and ten girls from the final year who are there to tell people to get out of buildings at lunch time; they’re kind of like police.  They wear a different color tie and they supposedly represent  the school.  There’s one head boy and one head girl. My brother was head boy, supposedly the guy who best represents the school, which he was in many ways. But in my penultimate year,  a year after he’d been head boy,   I just couldn’t hack it anymore.  Apparently I was having an attitude problem, which I wasn’t aware of because I wasn’t rebellious.  I wasn’t burning things or breaking things but I was having a hard time with some of my teachers.  I was constantly finding myself in the office of the deputy headmaster, who I thought  was a great man.  We used to just have a laugh which was nice. But after six weeks of driving home with my mom in the pouring rain — I remember the windscreen wipers were smacking about — she turned to me and said, ‘Listen, I’ve spoken to your father, and if you want to leave school, you can if you like.’  I was sixteen at the time. I never imagined they would let me leave and I said, ‘Right, I’ll leave.’

“It was  a very brave decision on their part. We lived in the countryside, I was too young to drive, and I didn’t have a job.  But they did it for my happiness and my sanity, and a week later I got a job at Perth Repertory Theatre working in the stage crew. 

“Suddenly I was working in the theatre, learning about discipline. I met gay people,  I met people who were having affairs,  and people who I’d never met before. Coming from a very tiny conservative Scottish town,  I didn’t know about these things and suddenly I felt like I was discovering who I was – so that was my schooling. That was where I should have been  all my life. I loved it even though I was such a pain for all of them because I was so keen, I wanted to do this and I was going to do that;  they were all just so fed up with me because I was under everybody’s feet, but they stuck me out, and by the end of it I came out a much more mature person, I think, and I learned a lot about what it was I wanted to do all these years.  And from there I  started training.”

Was he living at home at the time?

“I was for about six months, but then I moved away  when I was sixteen-and-a-half.”

Where did he train?

“I did a one year theatre arts course in Scotland and three years in Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.”

Was it useful?

“It all informs each other.  It’s very nice in Britain because we have the freedom to go from theatre to television to movies, and a greater freedom to fail than you have in Hollywood. If you’re a movie-star my age in Hollywood, and agents can get  $3 million for you for one picture, they’re not willing to let you do a movie for scale. But I’m not willing to give anybody that power over me. That’s why I’m  doing a play next summer with my uncle.  I find that very exciting to be able to do an independent movie for free and then do a movie with a $6 million budget. If you can do that,  then you’ve got the best of all worlds.”

While waiting for his big break did he take other jobs

“Just like every other actor.”

Which was the most interesting?

“Working on a fish farm, a trout farm, for a week. I wasn’t sacked;  that was just the length of the job.  So I was a trout farmer.  I was a BMW car valet for a while.  I worked on farms driving tractors.  I worked in bars and restaurants.  Too many bars and restaurants, so I promised myself  I’d never ever do that again and luckily I haven’t had to.”

Did he ever despair of becoming an actor?

“No, I always knew I was going to be here today.  I never considered it any other way.  I never even entertained the notion it wasn’t going to work ever.  It may sound very arrogant but that’s absolutely the way it was.  People would say, ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ and I’d think they were nuts.”

Did he ever try his hand at writing scripts?

“I tried, but  I was trying too hard. I fucked the dialogue up because I was trying to make everything very clever, and I didn’t have the patience to rewrite.  I don’t think I could ever do a second draft.  I would be so bored. I thought I had this great story to tell but I’d started without knowing where it was going so it became a boring thing.”

What was it about?

“It was about a summer I spent in Edinburgh during the festival when I was with this girl called Hannah.  It was a rather fantastic summer for me, but it would be really boring to watch in the movies though.”

He had worked with the writer-producer-director team twice before (Shallow Grave and Trainspotting) so did they have him in mind when they wrote A Life Less Ordinary ?

“Originally it was set  in Scotland and France, but it wasn’t working for some reason so it was moved to America. I was making a film in L.A. at the time called Nightwatch, which we won’t talk about at all, and they had come over to interview actresses. So while they were in Hollywood, I set up a screening of the film I was doing in which I  played an American,  just so they could  see if the accent was okay.  I was kind of on trial. Either I was going to get  the job or not. They left me hanging  for two days without calling because they’re bastards all of them and – but two days later Andrew (the producer) phoned up and went, ‘How are you?’ and I went ‘I’m fine thank you and…’ and they went ‘Well, you know, we just know you too well and it  it would be silly.  It would get in the way if it doesn’t work.’  So I went, ‘Okay, thanks, Andrew. Thanks for coming and thanks,’ and they said, ‘Oh, no, we’d still like you to do it,  but maybe he should just be Scots.’ 

“So that’s how  we arrived at him being Scots.  We never explain what he’s doing in America  because everyone knows there over 500,000 British people living in L.A. alone.”

In the film, there is a dream sequence where, unexpectedly, he dances with remarkable grace. Where did he learn to do that?

“I was always very musical.  My loves at school when I was a child were music and art,  but then they won’t let you do music and art together because they think you’re just copping out, which I think is a shame.  Anyway, I used to play French horn.  I was the soloist in the choir before my voice broke. I have always sung and I did a lot of Scottish country dancing.  I used to do that in my spare time.  Slightly embarrassing.  My mates used to give me a hard time about that. Then I went to drama school in London  and we were lucky enough to have singing lessons every week which is quite unusual for London.  My first job was Lipstick on Your Collar,  the Dennis Potter series, which was set in the 50’s in which I did a lot of dancing and lip syncing  to the original tracks,  but I’ve never done on stage.”

Would he like to do a musical? 

“I’d love it. I love singing and dancing.  It was great to having that opportunity  in the middle of this movie with someone as beautiful as Cameron Diaz to dance with. It was fantastic.”

Did he have any problem adjusting to (Mormon) Utah, where the film was shot?

“It’s very beautiful there.  I’ve unfortunately been quoted a few times as saying nasty things about Salt Lake City  because I had a hard time there, and I went slightly over the score a couple of times. I’ve got a feeling if I get shot dead at the premiere tonight (in New York), it’s probably be a militia man from Utah. 

“But  it’s a very, very beautiful land. I was there for three months,  Danny (Boyle, the diector) was there for six,  and he almost lost his mind.  Once we started shooting it was fine. We found one brilliant bar called Spanky’s which was a kind of bikers’ poolhall  where we’d descend into a normal existence. We’d work six days and then we’d all go out and get drunk on the night before our day off.  En masse we’d go to this bar. The one thing I objected to was being stared at a lot. I really don’t like that.  I mean, I don’t stare at people because they don’t dress like me, and I expect the same in return, you know.”

Any experiences he could share with us?

“I have one. My daughter was about seven or eight months when we were there, and we’d go shopping on a Sunday to the supermarket.  I have this hat from a New York clothing firm called Pervert , it’s  brand new.  It doesn’t mean pervert.  Anyway, it says Pervert across this woolen hat, and in the supermarket the air-conditioning would be very strong in there, so I’d put this hat on my baby.  I didn’t even think about it.  I was walking around with this seven-month-old baby with pervert written across her forehead, and suddenly  I became the antichrist.  I was the walking devil in Utah.  They were all blowing their trumpets and running down to the whatever it’s called.”

Did George Lucas get to meet him before he was cast as Obi Wan Kenobi?

“I first met with his casting director about two years ago, and then a year later I met her again and then was pulled in to meet George and Rick McCallum, his producer, and we just had a chat mainly about children, I think.  He’s got three kids so we talked about our children, and then I went up to do a screen-test with Liam Neeson, and we played three of the scenes, and that was it.  It was as simple as that really.”

What  kind of Obi Wan Kenobi will he be?

“A very young Obi Wan Kenobi.”

Was he a fan of Star Wars?

“I was.  My uncle Dennis Lawson was in all three.  It’s rather bizarre and then it’s so mad to be in Star Wars.  Imagine what that’s like.  I’m in Star Wars!  I have my own light sabre and everything.”

Is he concerned that the role might typecast him?

“No, I mean,  I’m confident enough that I’ve got a body of work behind me not to worry about it too much. But I don’t think of Star Wars as being like a studio blockbuster.  It’s going to be enormous, but it’s unique. I remember what they meant to me when they came out the first time, and I can imagine what they’ll mean to my daughter It’s not the greatest acting challenge I’ve ever had,  but it was a great laugh.  I had a good time doing it,  and it’s quite something.  Every day I’d have a Star Wars moment where I’d go ‘I’m in Star Wars,’ because there’s nothing bigger.  There never was.”

How old was he when he saw the first one?

“I think I was six.”

Did he try to emulate Alec Guinness (who was the original Obi Wan Kenobi)?

“What I concentrated on was the voice. But I found myself doing a lot of his physicalities  even though I never worked on it.  I never thought about it.  All through the shoot  I watched his scenes (on video) looking for the voice but I found myself doing the physical things purely because of that cloak. You can see why he has his hands out, it’s  because of the cloak. But it’s difficult to take an old voice and try to make it  young.  I don’t know if it can be done. I might have pushed it too far because  voice coaches have told me the voice doesn’t age as much as we think it does.  When you get very, very old, it gets quiet and croaky, but it doesn’t change much. I don’t know if it will work, but it will be interesting to find out.”

Obviously, because he’s done it so often, he has no problem with nudity.

“It’s just my job.  I’ve always seen it as just my job. Acting is just pretending to be other people, pretending to be somebody else — it’s not  me. I don’t pick a script because this will make me look great or this is going to make me look cool.  I pick it for the character I’m playing; it’s that simple. 

“I’m an actor for Christ sake.  That’s my job,  so if you’re going to be in a Peter Greenaway movie, of course, you’re going to be naked.  Everybody is always naked in his movies.  Fantastic.   I don’t have a problem with that.  I want to work with different people.  I want to work with Greenaway.  I want to work with Boyle.  I want to work with George Lucas. They’re all different people, and they’re all people you want to work with.  The idea of playing the same character over and over again it’s not acting – it’s being a celebrity as opposed to being an actor.” 

What makes a Greenaway movie so unique? 

“It’s completely different,  and it’s got as much to do with the crew you’re working with as the director.  I’ve had a horrendous time with a director.  I’ve had the best time with a director. Sometimes the worst experience makes a very good film and vice versa.  There are no rules.  That’s why I really like it because there’s no formula for making a good film, which is the mistake Hollywood makes.  They’re desperate to get the formula. George Lucas gets pestered all the time. How did he do that?  But there’s no formula.  It works or it doesn’t; everything is different.  Everything’s in the air.  It’s always a different experience and surprisingly working with Greenaway was the least cerebral thing I’ve done because he doesn’t direct.  He just lets you get on with it. I was very surprised about that.  I had imagined he’d be deeply intellectual and he would involve me intellectually but he didn’t.  He just lets you do your thing so it became an exercise in — I didn’t know if I was experienced enough to know how to pitch my performance.  How far to go or how far to pull it back,  but it was an incredible freeing experience doing that.  Big wide shots, four minute long takes to act in, you know. 

“There are other directors who are completely controlling. ‘You start here, you go here and you might say your line over here and then you’re here,’ and I always say,’How do you know?  How do you know that?  I don’t know if that’s what I’m going to do yet.  Let’s have a look.  Let’s try it first.’  That can be the most frustrating thing,  but even in the worst day I wouldn’t do anything else.  I love it to death and I love watching them.  I love it when I see them.  To just sit in a cinema and watch. I love watching myself up on screen.  It’s fucking great.  I love it.  I love it because I’m so proud to be up there.  I can’t believe I’m up there.  It’s fantastic.  Fantastic.  I love it.”

He was quoted as saying he won’t buy into the Hollywood scene. What does that mean?

“I’m quite harsh on Hollywood sometimes. It makes me sick when I’m there, sometimes.   I like working there.  It’s a good town to work in.  It’s a great town to drive in; it makes you feel like you’re driving through a movie fantasy. But for me I want to be involved with films in which somebody has got a vision.  Somebody has got to be in control. In the big studio pictures there is none of that, it’s like the audience is making the movie.  I mean, this whole system of previewing movies, I just don’t get it.  It’s like Picasso painting a beautiful picture and showing it to his mate and saying, ‘What do you think?’ and they go,  ‘I don’t like the nose.’  ‘Oh, hang on.  What do you think now?’  ‘I think she would look better blonde.’  ‘Hang on,’ and, of course, it’s not going to be Picasso’s painting anymore, and this is what happens in America.  I’ve had to fight my way out of doing so many re-shoots for this film, we won’t talk about it. ‘It’s not the film I agreed to do anymore.’  ‘But they are only scoring 75.’  ‘Well, what the fuck does that mean?  75 what?  And who are these people?  Are they directors?  No.  They’re not actors.  Who are they?’  ‘They’re people on the street.’  Well, I don’t think people on the street should make movies unless they’re directors or actors or whatever.  I’m not disputing the fact that we make  movies for audiences,  but we shouldn’t let them interfere. 

“So here I go. I just don’t like that. It makes me rather angry . The A Lists and B Lists and C Lists. How dare you do that!  We’re people.  We’re not fucking numbers and letters, and who’s right for the  part?  Who’s best for the part?  Who’s going to make the film good?  ‘Oh, no, but they won’t get us any money.’  Well, don’t make the movie then really if that’s your – I just don’t understand it.  That makes me angry and this was why I shouldn’t be there really.  And I’m not.  But I’m not against it  and I’d go over and make a film there if I like the script.  The only one I made there was with a Danish director and producer so it was not really Hollywood, was it?”

What keeps him grounded?

“I have a very, very tricky wife.  No, she’s fantastic.”

How did they meet? 

“We met doing a television series called Kavanagh, Q.C. in London about four years ago, three years ago, I don’t know.  We bought a house, had a baby, and got married all at the same time just because it’s best to get it out of the way, isn’t it?  She’s fantastic, and I think she’s got a lot to do with it.  Somebody once asked me if she’d saved my life – without her, would I be lost or something?  Yes, she’s great and she’s a very straight lady and it’s not going to affect her because she’s a very intelligent woman and she has it very firmly in place so  I don’t get away with anything. I’m a very lucky man, yeah.”

Is she an actress?

“No, she’s a production designer and writer now.”

Is money of no concern to him?

“I let  my agent worry about that kind of thing because it can get out of hand.  I don’t care what people make particularly.  I think it’s pretty sick that they make films for $280 million though.  And very bad films at that. I’d do jobs for free with my friends, shorts and stuff, and Andrew has always screwed me into the ground.  He never pays me very well, but then I’m very proud of the films I’ve done with him so it doesn’t matter – it’s not the issue for me. The second you start choosing films for the money, you get trapped, but I must admit I get paid a great deal of money for a British actor.”

Is his accent a disadvantage?

“In Britain there’s so many different regional accents and for a country that small I mean, there’s incredibly diverse accents from Scotland to England to Wales and Ireland, everywhere. So to be an actor in Britain,  you’re called upon to do a London accent or a Scottish accent. I’ve never thought about losing  my accent.  I’ve thought about adopting another,  but if somebody is trying to get me just to lose my Scottish accent, I say  it can’t be done because what would there be if you take that away.”

Just for the record, why is his production company called Natural Nylon?

“I think – now how does it go?  My friend Jude Law came up with it while he was in New York.  Nylon is New York and London.  And Natural, I have no idea.  Natural Nylon.  It’s kind of a contradiction in terms, isn’t it?”

The only time he lost his cool was when someone bugged him about his smoking.

Is he an addict? he was asked

“Yes.  Heroin and booze and prostitution too.”

Doesn’t he worry about his mortality?

“No, we all die. It’s true.  I just smoke.  I am a smoker on the set and I drink a great deal as well.  I love to drink too.”

And with that he took off.