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Ewan McGregor extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Ewan McGregor
McGregor at the Stormbreaker premiere, July 2006
Born	Ewan Gordon McGregor 31 March 1971 (1971-03-31) (age 38) Crieff, Scotland
Occupation	Actor, Singer
Years active	1993–present
Spouse(s)	Eve Mavrakis (1995–present)

Ewan Gordon McGregor (pronounced /ˌjuːən məˈɡrɛɡər/; born 31 March 1971)¹ is a Scottish actor, singer, and adventurer who has had success in mainstream, indie and art house films. He is perhaps best known for Danny Boyle's 1996 film Trainspotting, his portrayal of the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, his role as the romantic penniless writer Christian in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, his role opposite Renée Zellweger in Down with Love (2003) and his motorcycle adventures with friend Charley Boorman in Long Way Round and Long Way Down.

He is due to appear in the upcoming films I Love You Phillip Morris and Amelia and portrayed the Camerlengo Patrick McKenna in the film adaption of Angels & Demons, released in May 2009. Aside from his film work, McGregor has starred in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls. He also appeared in television series such as The Scarlet and the Black, Lipstick On Your Collar, Tales from the Crypt, and ER. He was ranked No. 36 in Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.²

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life and career 1.2 Star Wars 1.3 Other work 1.4 Personal life 2 Filmography 2.1 Feature films 2.2 Television 3 Discography 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

Biography

Early life and career

McGregor was born in the Perth Royal Infirmary, was brought up in the nearby small town of Crieff, Scotland, and went to the independent fee-paying school Morrison's Academy. His mother, Carol Diane (née Lawson), is a teacher and school administrator, and his father, James Charles Stuart McGregor, is a physical education teacher.³⁴ His mother is the sister of actor Denis Lawson,⁵ the sister-in-law of the late actress Sheila Gish, and the step-aunt of the late Lou Gish. McGregor attended Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1988 to study drama.⁵ Six months before graduating, he won a leading role in Dennis Potter's six-part BBC series Lipstick on Your Collar,⁵ and has been working steadily ever since. McGregor made his feature film debut in 1993 in Bill Forsyth's Being Human.⁶ The following year, he earned widespread praise and won an Empire Award for his performance in the thriller Shallow Grave,⁷ which marked his first collaboration with director Danny Boyle.⁵ His major international breakthrough soon followed with the role of heroin addict Mark Renton in Boyle's film version of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting.⁵⁶

Star Wars

In 1999, McGregor starred in the blockbuster Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace as Obi-Wan Kenobi, a role originally made famous by Sir Alec Guinness in the original Star Wars trilogy.⁵ He reprised his role for the subsequent prequels Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). McGregor took very special care (especially in Revenge of the Sith) in his portrayal to ensure that Obi-Wan's mannerisms, speech timings, and accents closely resemble Obi-Wan's "Alec Guinness Self".⁸ In appearing in the Star Wars films, he was continuing a family tradition of sorts: his uncle, Denis Lawson, had played Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy.⁹

Other work

McGregor has been featured as the male romantic lead in Hollywood films such as Moulin Rouge! and Down With Love, and in the British film Little Voice.⁵¹⁰ He received excellent reviews for his performance as an amoral drifter mixed up in murder in the Scottish film Young Adam (2003), which co-starred the acclaimed Scottish actress Tilda Swinton.¹¹¹² McGregor was offered the lead role as James Bond in the 2006 reboot Casino Royale but he turned it down because he feared becoming typecast.¹³

McGregor is one of the few major male actors to repeatedly do full-frontal nudity in many of his films, including Trainspotting, Velvet Goldmine, The Pillow Book, and Young Adam.¹⁴ He also played gay and bisexual characters in Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book and Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine.¹⁴

In 2005, McGregor lent his voice to two successful animated features; the robot Rodney Copperbottom in Robots, which also featured the voices of Halle Berry and Robin Williams;¹⁵ and the lead character in Gary Chapman's Valiant, alongside Jim Broadbent, John Cleese and Ricky Gervais.¹⁶ Additionally in 2005, McGregor played two roles (one a clone of the other) opposite Scarlett Johansson in Michael Bay's The Island and then appeared in Marc Forster's Stay, a psychological thriller co-starring Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling.¹⁷¹⁸

McGregor has narrated the STV show JetSet, a Scottish series following the lives of student pilots and navigators at RAF Lossiemouth as they undergo a gruelling six-month course learning to fly the Tornado GR4—the RAF's primary attack aircraft.¹⁹ In theatre, he starred alongside Jane Krakowski, Douglas Hodge, and Jenna Russell in the original Donmar Warehouse production of Guys and Dolls²⁰ in London at the Piccadilly Theatre. He played the leading role of Sky Masterson, made famous by Marlon Brando in the film, and he received the LastMinute.com award for Best Actor in 2005.²¹ He was also nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.²² McGregor appears opposite Colin Farrell in Cassandra's Dream,⁶²³ and will co-star with Daniel Craig in Dan Harris' upcoming film adaptation of Glen Duncan's novel I, Lucifer.²⁴ He will also be featured along with Jim Carrey in the 2009 film I Love You Phillip Morris.

From December 2007 to February 2008, he starred as Iago in Othello at the Donmar Warehouse alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello and Kelly Reilly as Desdemona,²⁵²⁶ a role he will reprise on BBC Radio 3 in May 2008.²⁵

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.⁵ They have two daughters together, Clara Mathilde (born February 1996) and Esther Rose (born 7 November 2001), and McGregor has a Heart and Dagger tattoo of their names on his right arm.²⁷⁵¹⁰ In April 2006, McGregor and his wife adopted Jamiyan, a four-year-old girl from Mongolia (born June 2001).²⁸ McGregor refuses to talk about his family in interviews; "because it's private."²⁹ During the "fly-on-the-wall" filming of preparation for the Long Way Round and Long Way Down journeys, McGregor went to great lengths to keep his children — and information that could reveal the location of his home — away from the cameras. Unlike travelling companion Charley Boorman, whose daughters often appeared in front of the cameras, McGregor did not have his children present at the send-off or other filmed parts of either adventure, but they were filmed at the end when his family greeted him at the end of the journey.²⁹ Having lived in London for some time, in 2008 the family relocated their main base to their home in Los Angeles, while retaining their home in London.

A keen motorcyclist since his youth, McGregor undertook a marathon motorcycle trip with his 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).³⁰ The trip formed the basis of a television series and a best-selling book, both called Long Way Round.³¹ En route the Long Way Round team took time out to see some of UNICEF's work in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia.³¹ The Long Way Round team reunited in 2007 for another motorcycle trip from John o' Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa.³¹ The journey, entitled Long Way Down lasted from 12 May until 5 August 2007.³¹

McGregor's brother, Colin, is a Tornado GR4 pilot in the Royal Air Force.³² Colin joined the motorcycle team during the early stages of the Long Way Down journey.³¹³² His father Jim McGregor also rode on sections of both Long Way Round and Long Way Down, while his mother Carol surprised him in the latter stages of his African journey, serving him a can of Coca-Cola at a lodge in Malawi.³³³⁴

In an episode of Parkinson in 2007, McGregor claimed that he has given up alcohol after a period where he was arguably a functioning alcoholic, and that he has not had a drink in seven years.³⁵ In 2008, he had a cancerous mole removed from underneath his right eye.³⁶

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Film	Role	Other notes
1993	Being Human	Alvarez
1994	Shallow Grave	Alex Law	Empire Award for Best British Actor
1995	Blue Juice	Dean Raymond
1996	Trainspotting	Mark Renton	Scottish BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Empire Award for Best British Actor ALFS Award for British Actor of the Year Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance
	The Pillow Book	Jerome
	Emma	Frank Churchill
	Brassed Off	Andy
1997	Nightwatch	Martin Bells
	The Serpent's Kiss	Meneer Chrome
	A Life Less Ordinary	Robert Lewis	Empire Award for Best British Actor Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Dance Sequence (shared with Cameron Diaz)
1998	Desserts	Stroller
	Velvet Goldmine	Curt Wild
	Little Voice	Billy	Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (shared with Annette Badland, Brenda Blethyn, Jim Broadbent, Michael Caine, Jane Horrocks, Philip Jackson)
1999	Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated – Blockbuster Entertainment Awards for Favorite Actor; Action/Science Fiction Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Fight (shared with Liam Neeson and Ray Park)
	Rogue Trader	Nick Leeson
	Eye of the Beholder	Stephen Wilson
2000	Nora	James Joyce	Nominated – Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actor
2001	Moulin Rouge!	Christian	ALFS Award for British Actor of the Year Empire Award for Best British Actor MTV Movie Award for Best Musical Sequence (shared with Nicole Kidman) Golden Satellite Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (shared with Jim Broadbent, Nicole Kidman, John Leguizamo, Richard Roxburgh) Nominated – Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated – Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Actor Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (shared with Nicole Kidman)
	Black Hawk Down	SPC John Grimes	Nominated – Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast (shared with Eric Bana, Ewen Bremner, William Fichtner, Josh Hartnett, Jason Isaacs, Sam Shepard, Tom Sizemore)
2002	Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones	Obi-Wan Kenobi
	Solid Geometry	Phil
2003	Down with Love	Catcher Block
	Young Adam	Joe Taylor	Scottish BAFTA Award for Best Actor In A Leading Role Nominated – British Independent Film Award for Best Actor Nominated – Empire Award for Best British Actor
	Faster	Narrator	voice
	Big Fish	young Edward Bloom
2005	Robots	Rodney Copperbottom	voice
	Valiant	Valiant	voice
	Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Fight (shared with Hayden Christensen) Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Hero
	The Island	Lincoln Six Echo and Tom Lincoln
	Stay	Sam Foster
2006	Scenes of a Sexual Nature	Billy
	Miss Potter	Norman Warne
	Stormbreaker	Ian Rider
2007	Cassandra's Dream	Ian
2008	Deception	Jonathan McQuarry
	Incendiary	Jasper Black
2009	I Love You Phillip Morris	Phillip Morris
	Angels & Demons	Camerlengo Patrick McKenna
	Amelia	Gene Vidal	awaiting release
	Men Who Stare at Goats	Bob Wilton	post-production
2010	The Ghost	The Ghostwriter	post-production
	Jackboots on Whitehall	Chris	voice, pre-production
2011	The Electric Slide	Eddie Dodson	pre-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1993	Lipstick on Your Collar	PVT Mick Hooper	Six episodes, main character
	The Scarlet and the Black	Julien Sorel	Mini-series
1995	Kavanagh QC	David Robert Armstrong	"Nothing But the Truth"
1996	Karaoke	young man	"Tuesday"
	Tales from the Crypt	Ford	"Cold War"
1997	ER	Duncan Stewart	"The Long Way Around"
2004	Long Way Round	himself	Documentary series
2007	Long Way Down	himself	Documentary series

Discography

• "Choose Life" by PF Project (from the Trainspotting soundtrack), 1996
• "Gimme Danger" single (Soundtrack for movie Velvet Goldmine Cover version of original song by The Stooges - 1998)
• "TV Eye" single (Soundtrack for movie Velvet Goldmine Cover version of original song by The Stooges - 1998)
• "Come What May" Single (Duet with Nicole Kidman - October 2001) UK #27
• "Your Song" single
• "Elephant Love Medley" single (Duet with Nicole Kidman - October 2001)
• "Here's To Love" (Duet with Renee Zellweger - Soundtrack for movie Down With Love - 2003)

References

Further reading

• Adams, Billy. Ewan McGregor: The Unauthorized Biography. Overlooks Press, 1999. ISBN 0879517042
• Bassom, David. Ewan McGregor: An Illustrated Story. Hamlyn, 1999. ISBN 0600596532
• Jones, Veda Boyd. Ewan McGregor. Facts On File Inc., 1999. ISBN 0791055019
• Nickson, Chris. Ewan McGregor: An Unauthorized Biography. Macmillan, 1999. ISBN 0312969104
• Pendreigh, Brian. Ewan McGregor. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999. ISBN 1560252391
• Robb, Brian J. Ewan McGregor: From Junkie to Jedi. Plexus, 1999. ISBN 0859652769

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ewan McGregor

• Ewan McGregor at the Internet Movie Database
• Ewan McGregor at Yahoo! Movies

v • d • e Star Wars Episodes Prequel trilogy: I: The Phantom Menace · II: Attack of the Clones · III: Revenge of the Sith Original trilogy: IV: A New Hope · V: The Empire Strikes Back · VI: Return of the Jedi Proposed sequel trilogy   Spin-off films Holiday Special · Caravan of Courage · The Battle for Endor · The Great Heep · The Clone Wars · Television series Droids · Ewoks · Clone Wars · The Clone Wars · Live-action TV series Other media Books · Comics · Radio · Video games · Music · Expanded Universe · Shadows of the Empire · The Force Unleashed Universe Characters · Locations · Creatures · Vehicles · Conflicts · Dates People George Lucas · John Williams · Mark Hamill · Carrie Fisher · Harrison Ford · Ewan McGregor · Natalie Portman · Hayden Christensen · Samuel L. Jackson · Christopher Lee · Liam Neeson · Jake Lloyd · Ian McDiarmid · Peter Mayhew · Frank Oz · James Earl Jones · David Prowse · Anthony Daniels · Kenny Baker · Ben Burtt · Rick McCallum

v • d • e Boorman and McGregor's Motorcycle Adventures Television programmes Long Way Round (2004) • Race To Dakar (2006) • Long Way Down (2007) People Ewan McGregor • Charley Boorman • Russ Malkin • Claudio von Planta

v • d • e Boorman and McGregor's Travel Adventures Television programmes Long Way Round (2004) • Race To Dakar (2006) • Long Way Down (2007) • By Any Means (2008) • By Any Means 2 (in development) People David Alexanian • Charley Boorman • Russ Malkin • Ewan McGregor • Claudio von Planta

Persondata
NAME	McGregor, Ewan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	McGregor, Ewan Gordon
SHORT DESCRIPTION
DATE OF BIRTH	1971-3-31
PLACE OF BIRTH	Crieff, Scotland
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH