Profile of Ewan McGregor on Famous Like Me

Ewan McGregor (born 31 March 1971 in Crieff, Perthshire to James McGregor and Carol Lawson) is a Scottish film actor who has had significant success in both mainstream and "art house" movies. McGregor attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Ewan McGregor came to prominence through his role as the heroin addict Renton in the film version of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting (1996). This role followed hard on his movie debut performance in Danny Boyle's 1994 film Shallow Grave. McGregor has also been featured as the male romantic lead in such Hollywood films as Moulin Rouge! and Down With Love, and in the British film Little Voice. He received excellent reviews for his performance in the very grim British film Young Adam (2003), which co-starred Tilda Swinton.

He took on the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, originally made famous by Alec Guinness in the original Star Wars.

Ewan was also the voice of the lovable robot, "Rodney Copperbottom" in the 2005 animated feature Robots, which also featured the voices of Halle Berry, Robin Williams and Mel Brooks, among others.

A keen motorcyclist since his youth, McGregor undertook a marathon motorcycle trip with his friend, Charley Boorman (son of famed Irish-based British director John Boorman), in 2004. From mid-April to the end of July, they travelled from London to New York, via central Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia and Canada, for a cumulative distance of 18,887 miles (30,395 km).

The only sections of the trip not undertaken by motorcycle were 580 miles by train in Siberia, due to lack of roads, and a 2505 mile flight from Magadan, Siberia to Anchorage, Alaska. The trip formed the basis of a TV series and a best-selling book , both called Long Way Round.

He is currently starring alongside Jane Krakowski in a new production of Guys and Dolls in London, at the Piccadilly Theatre. McGregor was also one of the many actors rumoured to be a candidate for the next James Bond in 2006. However, this role was given to Daniel Craig.

McGregor is married to Eve Mavrakis, a French production designer whom he met while filming McGregor's guest appearance on the British television series Kavanagh QC. (He has also appeared on ER)They were married in 1995 and have two daughters, Clara Mathilde McGregor and Esther Rose McGregor.

Trivia

• McGregor is one of the few major male actors to repeatedly do full-frontal nudity (in Trainspotting, Velvet Goldmine, The Pillow Book, and Young Adam).
• Celebritywonder.com reported in March 2005 that McGregor will no longer sign autographs because he is "sickened" by the exorbitant prices that people charge for it. (He did sign autographs after performances of Guys and Dolls on West End, preferring to sign Guys and Dolls programmes.)
• McGregor's uncle, Denis Lawson, played Luke Skywalker's friend Wedge Antilles in A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
• As a teenager McGregor studied at Morrison Academy in Crieff. He left school at the age of 16 to pursue a career in drama which he preferred to school life.

Filmography

Notes

1. ^  Long Way Round TV Series
2. ^  Long way round: Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
3. ^  Guys and Dolls musical

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Ewan McGregor