Ewan McGregor
- Profession: Actor
- Place/Date of Birth: Crieff, 31 March 2020
Currently, unlike their American colleagues, British actors only get paid for the first cinema release and then get only a flat fee for further showings. Equity has instructed members not to accept any new contracts for UK cinema films which would mean working on or after 1 December 2001.
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He started out at the local Morrison Academy and at the age of sixteen made his way down to the big smoke to train at the Guildhall School. Ewan got an early break thanks to Dennis Potter, who cast him in the critically acclaimed TV show Lipstick on Your Collar in 1993, just before his graduation. The small role got Ewan noticed and soon after leaving Guildhall he was cast in Bill Forsyth’s Being Human.
Ewan wasn’t about to hang around making mediocre movies though. In 1994 he was cast as Alex, one of three lead characters in Danny Boyle’s excellent Shallow Grave, which won a Bafta for Best British Film. His breakthrough came two years later, again thanks to Danny Boyle. Ewan was cast as the lead character, heroin addict Mark Renton, in cult classic Trainspotting. The controversial movie became the seminal nineties film, loved by young people all over Britain while Ewan became British cinema’s hottest property, the film world’s answer to Damon Albarn in a Brit-pop obsessed country.
From then on Ewan made sure he didn’t become stereotyped, taking parts in everything from arty intelligent projects like Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book (which helped to cement the reputation of a certain of Ewan’s body parts as a star as...ahem, big as its owner) to costume dramas - Jane Austen’s Emma - to gritty northern dramas such as the critically acclaimed Brassed Off.
By 1997’s A Life Less Ordinary Ewan was a global superstar and was the obvious choice for a role in then biggest movie franchise in history. Ewan’s role as Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels may not have allowed him to flex his acting muscles but it did send him stratospheric, and while he kept on with the quirky projects such as Big Fish and Moulin Rouge! he was also able to command huge salaries for each appearance and make action blockbusters such as The Island and Stormbreaker as well as costume dramas such as Miss Potter. He is set to appear in Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream and as the devil in I, Lucifer in 2007.
The huge fame that came with these movies also allowed Ewan to branch out with his own projects - notably The Long Way Round, a TV show which saw Ewan and pal Charley Boorman attempt a motorcycle trip from London to New York. As well as plenty of time in front of the camera Ewan, along with Sadie Frost, Jude Law, Sean Pertwee and Jonny Lee Miller, keeps his hand in behind the lens with Natural Nylon a production company owned by the Brit Pack A list.
updated January 2007
Ewan has been married to make up artist Eve Mavrakis since 1995. They met on the set of TV drama Kavanagh QC and now have two daughters Clara Mathilde and Esther Rose. In April 2006 the couple also adopted a four year old girl from Mongolia.
October 2007